


Landslide

by geniewish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Lighthouse, M/M, Underage Drinking, Yoo Kihyun-centric, dumb teenagers, even dumber adults, listen to lana del rey cowards, this is for kihyungwon bingo, this is modern american coming of age novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16924509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewish/pseuds/geniewish
Summary: In the chaos and the stillness of Kihyun’s world, Hyungwon was the only thing constant. And yet, even when the earth seemed to stop spinning around, he never stood on one place.And Kihyun stayed back waiting, hoping that if one day Hyungwon lost his way, the light would guide him home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is written for the kihyungwon bingo on the prompt 'lighthouse' !! 
> 
> songs to listen to to get into the mood are   
> lana del rey - mariners apartment complex & venice bitch  
> fleetwood mac - landslide & storms & rhiannon 
> 
> thank you so much to my beta toni for fixing everything and for having to suffer through conversations with me lmao ily 
> 
> hope you enjoy! scream at me on twt @chaeleggiewon or in the comments

One lovely, yet sometimes remorseful, thing about people is that they always change, in one way or another.

The grown-up you is never the same as the child you. Your opinion on the world varies depending on circumstances you find yourself in, the things you love, the things you cherish, the people you let into your life, although they don’t stay forever. When an old shirt wears out, then the fabric is rough and full of holes, and it smells like dust and dead skin, even if it’s the most treasured shirt you’ve ever possessed, you exchange it for something new. Maybe you still keep it in your wardrobe. Maybe you tell your kids the story of that one dirty spot on it—you played football with your friends, fell down, scratched your elbow, and your old crush-turned-spouse helped you get to the medical centre—maybe you even wear it to pose for a recreated photograph from your youth… this shirt doesn’t identify you anymore. It’s the new old-fashioned haute couture jacket you bought in an outlet somewhere in provincial Italy. It’s the sticker on the board in your office with the reminder of your dinner date instead of a colourful messy dinosaur drawing you were once proud of as a kid. It’s the modern philosophy book by Alasdair McIntyre instead of a whole collection of Charles Dickens novels your mother read to you before going to bed. 

Maybe you still love Charles Dickens. Perhaps, it’s not the fiction you love anymore, it’s the fragments of reality he put into his creations you began to appreciate after growing up. Nothing stays the same, even if the title of your favourite book doesn’t change. With time, it’s not the pocket money you’re given weekly by your parents that highlights your status—it’s your bank account. Even your financial balance is prone to change. Overdrafts, promotions, credit, casino, bankruptcy, salary, bills, theft, transfers, another credit, new account. The cycle doesn’t stand still; it, like the Earth around the Sun, keeps revolving and spinning in circles, always coming back to its initial position, only that this time it’s different to what it was last year, and the year before, and the year before that.

However, even through earth erosions, new fashion trends and countless milk substitutes, or through withering age and developing technology, some things stay the same. Your mother’s hospitality, your chronic illnesses, your political voice. Your family house and framed pictures in it—unless it’s sold or demolished; your food preference—unless you change your lifestyle and remove all animal products from your diet; or maybe your friends, people you love—unless they go out of life, out of your sight, follow their own path and leave nothing but a bitter memory, a trail of perfume, a carved out name on the wall of your childhood secret location. Maybe a little Christmas present is all they leave.

Even feelings don’t stay the same. They change like seasons, grow with you, get stronger and braver, bloom like blossoms in the spring, tangle and untangle like your messy morning hair, collapse like heavy rain in fall, and then they wither away and crumble to pieces, cease to exist like warmth in winter. And the cycle continues, all throughout your life. Except that every season there is something new, something you are yet to explore and grow familiar with, like a sting in your heart at the memory of crying eyes that you never quite experienced as a kid. Or maybe it’s a bright involuntary smile that stretches on its own at the sight of deep eye wrinkles that were never there when you were little. 

It’s hard to find something that remains forever, stays by your side all through your lifetime, but there are things that last. Maybe not eternity, maybe not a century, but they are there when you need them if they’re strong enough to keep standing through storm and fire, through shouts and tears, through the time that ticks relentlessly. Maybe there is a place you always come back to when you’re the most vulnerable, a tradition that you’ve been keeping ever since you remember yourself, a person that has always been there. In that exact place, during that exact time, with the same familiar eyes that also, just like everything else in the world, gave in to change.

 

**

 

Kihyun wasn’t nearly big enough to understand such things on a conscious level, but intuitively he knew there was a special feeling he only felt towards Hyungwon, and no one else besides him. A feeling of security, a feeling of gratitude, a feeling of… timelessness. He felt like he’d known Hyungwon for years, for longer than his parents were married, and he didn’t really know how long that was. Twenty years, maybe? It could be thirty, or even a hundred, but he knew Hyungwon was beyond that amount of time. Days with him passed like minutes, although so many things happened in the short two years they had been friends. Kihyun didn’t catch the moment he became self-aware, didn’t know when his older brother went to middle school, didn’t remember the day his parents bought him his first two-wheeled bike, didn’t recall the old color of the walls in his room, but one thing he knew for sure—Hyungwon was always there.

Hyungwon’s mom was always lovely, although he didn’t quite know where the appreciation came from. Maybe it was because of the sweetest pancakes she cooked for the two of them on days when they had no school, or maybe because she was always smiling, or maybe because she wore bright colors. It could be because she, unlike Kihyun’s own parents, didn’t scream when they all watched some boring news channel to find out who won the vote—Kihyun wasn’t even sure he remembered what the vote was about. The only time he participated in voicing out his preference to someone important was when choosing a class representative at the start of school. Hyungwon voted for him, and Kihyun, purely out of playfulness and teasing, raised his hand for Mikey, a loud obnoxious boy that always laughed at Hyungwon when he stuttered while reading out a poem, although all of the kids in his class just started learning how to read. 

Somehow, Kihyun knew that the vote his parents cared about was more serious than his little joke, but the day of the class voting hurt Hyungwon a little deeper. The grudge disappeared quickly though—Hyungwon only had to win their race back home to cheer up immediately. He was always easy like that, smiling at every little thing that he assumed made him happy. Kihyun was not a capricious child, but he tended to throw tantrums when plans didn’t go according to his expectations, like that one time he didn’t want to go to the town beach and catch crabs, he wanted to see the marines! His parents would grab him by the collar and tell him off, his brother would laugh at him, and Kihyun would close off and walk around with a frown on his face.

“For goodness sakes, Kihyun, you’re six years old but acting like little Karen!” His mother snapped at him. Karen was Hyungwon’s little baby sister. Kihyun didn’t even consider her a human—she was carried in blankets and drank from the bottle, she couldn’t even speak or walk, and Hyungwon’s mom always cooed at her with a high-pitched voice and muttered some gibberish. Karen also cried and made ugly faces, and her hair was light and looked like fluff. Hyungwon liked holding her though, but his older brother always clicked his tongue at him and volunteered to hold her instead. He thought Hyungwon would drop his baby sister because he was still small. 

It was always a little funny when they had to draw their family trees in school. Kihyun’s was always simple—his mother and her then straight dark hair, his father and his balding head, his brother with a frown and shark teeth, and Kihyun himself. Hyungwon, on the other hand, required more than one colour to draw his entire extended family: brown, yellow, orange, grey. The teacher always asked why they were all so different, and Hyungwon shrugged his shoulders and said it was just how it was.

He was always that simple, Hyungwon. When Kihyun finally received his beloved bike, they went racing out of town, up and down the coastal area of sunny California, and Kihyun only had to say a simple ‘don’t worry’ for Hyungwon to stop questioning the prospects of getting lost. It was hard to go off track, there was only one road they could take, and one rocky path they could descend by to find themselves on the top of the cliff, meters and meters above the clear blue water and foamy waves hitting the half-eroded rocks. Kihyun was happy to the core—he found it, the lighthouse he was looking for. The tall white tower, still new-looking but abandoned—he knew it because his parents told him when he asked about the marines. They said they found a new village to settle in, so the lighthouse was not needed anymore.

Hyungwon was immediately inspired. “If we get lost, we can just look out of the tower to see where the way back home is!” Kihyun just laughed and slammed into the heavy wooden door in attempts to open it. With mutual effort, the portal finally creaked, hesitated, contemplated, but kindly fell out of its locks to welcome the two of them into the secret place they called theirs.

And the spiral wooden staircase led up into the unknown darkness, and the light steps echoed, and the railing was still polished, smooth, not a splinter to be discovered just yet. The second black door at the top opened with a swing, and they had to squint at the sudden exposure to the sun.

It was beautiful up there.

Kihyun always dreamed of seeing the horizon and the smudged line between the ocean and the sky, and how the light reflected in the surface of the still calm water, and how it was empty, almost abandoned, just like the lighthouse they found themselves in. The tower was not tall enough to show them their town, but it wasn’t needed anyways—Kihyun’s parents once told him that water was one of the only things people could look at for hours without getting bored. He didn’t understand it back then.

 

Kihyun thought he finally caught the moment he became self-aware. He didn’t remember when he met Hyungwon for the first time, and when their parents told them the story of that fateful day, it remained in his memory as a visual novel of someone else’s life. Kihyun was only three when his parents moved to the new house on the coast in the Pacific, but it was the only home Kihyun had ever known. He started to understand his actions when he was four, when Hyungwon’s seven-member family moved into the house in the residence, just five minutes away from the immigrant Yoos. Their house was big. They, unlike Kihyun’s family, weren’t on the verge of bankruptcy, they just needed a bigger place to live after Hyungwon grew out of his crib and little Karen took his place, and this small suburban area under San Francisco was their best bet with its affordable prices and proximity to the center. Kihyun’s parents met Hyungwon’s on the way in and out of the village, when the Yoos volunteered to help the other family move all their furniture and boxes. Soon they found out they had sons of the same age, and when Kihyun saw little four-year-old Hyungwon for the first time, he accepted him as a given.

“I’m Hyungwon,” he muttered and squinted at the blinding sun, nuzzling to his mom’s side.

“Alex, darling, that’s your middle name.” The woman had her pale manicured hand on his shoulder, and Hyungwon mumbled something into her skirt. Kihyun didn’t mean to grimace, but the sun was ruthless, and Hyungwon’s mom’s skin was so white it seemed to reflect the light, and Kihyun could never understand why that fact didn’t sit so well with him at first.

Two years later, and Kihyun still took Hyungwon as a given, as someone who had always been there, because he didn’t quite remember the day they first met. Having Hyungwon around was natural, but he never quite understood where the appreciation came from. Hyungwon’s charms appeared quite early, and Kihyun could already list a few adjectives to describe his best friend. He was a dreamer with huge imagination, was sensitive and very easy to understand, Hyungwon created their games and Kihyun was the one to make the rules, Hyungwon was very knowing and Kihyun was very impulsive. When they climbed their secret base—the lighthouse—Hyungwon would jump on the sill and suggest a pirate game, and Kihyun would call himself the captain of the ship and pretend to fight his friend whenever the other was the most vulnerable.

Hyungwon took things easily. When Kihyun kept grimacing at the sun and the thought of Hyungwon being adopted, Hyungwon just continued digging the dirt with the nose of his shoe and shrugging, because his parents told him a long time ago and Kihyun accidentally overheard his parents badmouthing his friend’s family and their controversial liberal views on the world. Kihyun didn’t understand any of it, and Hyungwon just shrugged like he always did when words weren’t sufficient enough to describe how he felt.

When the summer of nineteen-ninety-four came to an end and the new school year began, trips to the lighthouse decreased from every day to a few days a week. The weather didn’t shift too dramatically, but the sun wasn’t eliciting warmth anymore, and the breeze slapped their cheeks when they raced down the road to the secret base in jackets and hats. Kihyun turned seven, winter took over, and they sneaked a few garlands from their families’ Christmas decoration boxes into the lighthouse, to turn it a little bit more festive.

It didn’t snow on the Christmas day. Kihyun had never seen snow before, actually, but he heard that it was beautiful. Their parents allowed them to go out before it got dark, and they raced to the lighthouse with snacks they stole from the dinner tables to eat together in their secret tower, watching the dark blue water and narrating stories of their pirate ships, imagining the fight and battles, growling like sea monsters that attacked their crews and running around the tiny cabin like terrified pirates. And were they really terrified when it started to get dark and they weren’t home yet, when they raced back up to the village, when Hyungwon’s mom hugged him and jokingly threatened to limit his candy intake if he dared to do that again, when Kihyun’s mother towered over him with a big frown on her face and hands on her hips, when his brother mocked him, his father continued reading his newspaper, and Kihyun was the last to open his Christmas present.

When Kihyun was little, he thought he appreciated Hyungwon for the games his parents gave him as presents, or the stationary computer his dad allowed him to use once a day, or for the cakes his mother baked—two for their own family, and one for Kihyun’s. Hyungwon loved sharing, and Kihyun loved taking, but somehow, he always thought about giving it all back. Maybe because his parents taught him to, or maybe because he started to develop a sense of shame after seeing how often Hyungwon smiled, or maybe because he copied what Hyungwon always did. It was hard finding explanations for things when Kihyun was a child.

Hyungwon seemed to grow faster than Kihyun, and not only in height. At eight, he was at the top of the class, played soccer, went grocery shopping with his mom, and already started making plans. He was a dreamer, Kihyun figured it long ago, but never quite understood the label he put on his best friend.

“I want to do great stuff!” Hyungwon exclaimed, jumped up and raised his hands to the roof of their secret tower. Pirate games turned into Dungeons and Dragons, Hyungwon’s love for chips turned into extra bones in his legs, and Kihyun’s candy-filled stomach turned into a soft belly Hyungwon constantly poked just for the sake of it. Kihyun wasn’t too bothered, so he slumped by the light machine and stared into the distance through the dusty glass. 

“What great stuff?” He put another gummy worm into his mouth.

“Don’t know,” Hyungwon pouted and scratched his chin like his dad tended to do. “Want to change the world to make it good?”

Kihyun hummed. “Mm. I wanna be a Pokémon.” Hyungwon laughed.

If he had to think hard about it, Kihyun would probably want to be a singer. His brother was teaching him guitar when he was in a mood to be nice, and he was the best in music classes in school. He even got to lead the choir. It was one thing he was better at than Hyungwon—music. His best friend could speak for hours about games he thought of, imagine worlds and tribes, write scripts and stories, but Kihyun could sing a tune and annoy his father in the morning with it.

Kihyun thought he had no worries, but when his father got into a car accident and was bounded to a wheelchair, he developed a fear of vehicles, and his mother always scolded him and grabbed him tightly by the forearm as she dragged him to their car to drive Kihyun to school. He didn’t want to, so he cried, and cried harder when his mother snapped at him, and then Hyungwon hugged him in the school toilet before the classes started as Kihyun continued sniffing at the image of his parents’ outraged faces. It was always better when his best friend was there, although the feeling never materialised into proper thoughts and was left unexplained.

 

Hyungwon appeared to be quite shy in nature. When puberty hit, he started growing taller and smarter, like he always did, and Kihyun continued gazing into the water that always stayed the same. His brother finished high school, and went straight into the military; his parents thought of organizing a small local campaign to encourage people to vote for no other than George W. Bush, and Hyungwon started writing poetry and thinking out loud.

“Maybe,” he started again, playing his newest Game Boy, “I can be a president and rule the whole country.”

Kihyun wasn’t paying much attention to what Hyungwon was saying before as he tried to tune down his guitar, but that made him snicker. “You can’t even put yourself forward as a candidate for the class rep, what president?”

Hyungwon clicked his tongue, either because he lost a game or because Kihyun was always a little bit more straightforward than needed. “Well, I still get good grades. I’m smart enough to apply for something else equally as important.” His voice got quieter towards the end as he realized the lack of meaning behind his words. He was always like that, much better at reading off the paper than staying stern about his own opinion.

“Politicians have to make speeches. Don’t you watch TV? You just have to be loud if you want to impress. You can’t even finish a poem without stuttering at least twice.” Kihyun strummed a chord and nodded in satisfaction to the perfect tuning. Although there were still a lot of things he didn’t understand and accepted it as a fact, he knew that music was something he was meant to do. Like Hyungwon was good at poetry, or scribbling, or whatever else he did in class out of boredom. Kihyun was probably only good at holding his brother’s old guitar and humming for the deep endless ocean.

Hyungwon sighed. “You’re right,” and he sounded disappointed, either because he lost again or because Kihyun somehow always spoke the truth. “But there must be something I can do.” There were a lot of things he could do. First, he could hit a goal from the first attempt. Kihyun always wondered why Hyungwon never bragged about his achievements and cups in soccer when he was one of the best in their school team. Surely, he couldn’t compare to older kids, but in their class, he was pretty well-known for his skills. Maybe Kihyun was a little bit jealous of them.

“Why are you thinking about it now?”

Hyungwon shrugged, like he always did when his words were too slow to express everything that was going through his head. “Don’t know. I just want to be useful for something.”

“You’re only twelve,” Kihyun’s voice cracked in the end as he grimaced at the excessively unnecessary worries. “Kibum only started worrying about his future in the final grade.”

“Well,” Hyungwon inhaled through his teeth as he tried to formulate his next words. He always thought before speaking. Kihyun just preferred to be truthful with everything. “Your brother isn’t exactly the best role model to me…” His words got quieter towards the end yet again, and Kihyun just huffed as he fingerpicked a simple tune.

“It’s not like it’s a secret to anyone, really.”

Kihyun composed the best when he was at the sea. His notes flowed smoothly like the waves underneath, and the strange tranquillity settled in his chest with the smell of salty breeze and cries of morning seagulls. When he started humming his tunes, Hyungwon’s unconscious muttering always stopped, and the other listened, eyes unchangeably in his game. Kihyun didn’t know what he sang about, most of the time the words were just gibberish, a collection of sounds to match the meter of musical poetry, and it didn’t matter what it was supposed to mean. His mind was always concerned with different things, be it his life or lives of people around him, or maybe lives of the marines, or maybe even lives of the ravenous seagulls.

He wasn’t a dreamer like Hyungwon, he preferred to stay on the ground. He didn’t like it when the wind was strong enough to pick him up and carry him into a different world through dust and salt and stones, he would much rather go against the storm and watch it unfold from a safe distance. Hyungwon was light, lightheaded, too passive and shy to go against the current he created for himself, and sometimes it seemed like endless water was the only thing he ever knew.

Kihyun wasn’t fixed on his dreams, plans, fate, whatever it was that moved him forward. His vision of the future ended with the suggestion to create a band with Hyungwon and a few other kids from their class, and although everyone seemed excited at first, deep inside he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Hyungwon volunteered to write lyrics, but his poetry was always something entirely abstract, different, complex for such a young boy. His vocabulary grew much wider due to all the books he read; he knew terms his dad used when talking about business and politics, and he always elaborated. Kihyun didn’t even know what it meant back then. If he were a writer, he’d do things in a much simpler way. He’d talk about his life, his mother and father, his friends, his house, Hyungwon, his home. He’d talk about why he disliked his teachers, how he made his own judgement on situations he was necessarily involved in—like when he got into detention for initiating a fight with a boy he disliked—or what kind of person Hyungwon was. He’d translate his best friend’s words into something ordinary.

But decreasing Hyungwon to something ordinary was impossible. He became the vice-captain of their junior soccer team, joined the Spanish debate team, participated in literature essay competitions, read complicated books on things he shouldn’t have been interested in just yet, and continued growing taller. Sometimes Kihyun quietly admitted that he was jealous of his best friend’s certain achievements, and then dared him to beat him in their race down to the lighthouse. Hyungwon kept losing—his legs grew a little too long for his bike, and he was uncomfortable. This always made Kihyun feel better.

The wooden stairs squeaked and creaked under their steps, the dust on the railing stuck to their palms as they slid them up the surface, and spider webs decorated the now stained windows of the tower. When little Karen grew out of her crib, Hyungwon’s parents had to throw the old mattress away, but the boys sneaked it out of the garage and spent hours trying to get it to the lighthouse. Their efforts weren’t in vain—now sitting in the tower was much more comfortable.

“You know, I can really be a politician!” Hyungwon started the same old tune. “I will fight for my rights as the person of color, I mean, do you know who I am? I am the citizen of the United States of America, this is where I was born, this is where I lived my whole life—”

“Not a long life it was.” Kihyun interrupted, opening another packet of Nerds.

“I’m talking about the future. And!” Hyungwon exclaimed and paused, building anticipation for a dramatic ending to his little outburst, “I will officially change my surname to my other middle name,” he smiled smugly, visibly proud of the idea, “Hyungwon Chae. How do you like that?” His eyes lighted up, and his cheeks puffed up in an excited smile. Hyungwon was not of any particular beauty, at least not to Kihyun’s eye. Some girls in their classes were already so much prettier, but at least Hyungwon was one of the tallest boys, and he stood in the beginning of the line in their PE class. Kihyun wanted to find it in himself to start doing something to seem cooler for the girls, but he couldn’t be bothered. Especially not around Hyungwon, who didn’t seem to care about this stuff at all. He blushed in their biology class, and Kihyun burst out laughing in the middle of a lesson because of his best friend’s funny face at the mentions of, well, reproductive organs.

No, Hyungwon would much rather talk about the approaching economic crisis with his dad than care about girls in school.

“No one would ever elect you.” Kihyun teased, joked around, but Hyungwon jumped up with the most offended expression on his face.

“Why not? Look, we had enough Senators of Asian descend to prove that it doesn’t really matter! Maybe not all of them were Democrats, but…” Hyungwon looked up and scratched his chin, obviously trying to remember where he was going with it. “Anyways, my dad says California will definitely stay blue this election, are you sure your parents don’t feel too much pressure?” Kihyun sighed and rolled his eyes, because it wasn’t the first time Hyungwon somehow got on the topic of his family in the midst of his rant.

“They’re definitely voting Bush, I hear them talk about it every day.” Kihyun muttered, and Hyungwon sat next to him, face still somehow cheerful, and talked to him about other ideas he had, how he’d be the manager if Kihyun ever decided to make his own band, or how his older brother from UCLA was coming to visit, and how they’d all go to Los Angeles once they each get their own car. Kihyun doubted it.

 

He never learned how to drive. Even when Hyungwon finally turned sixteen, when his parents bought him his own brand-new car, when he got his driving license and picked Kihyun up on their way to school for the first time. Getting to the lighthouse didn’t feel like a bother anymore, and a strange sense of freedom settled in Kihyun’s chest at the sudden plans about what they could possibly do now, where they could go, who they could take with them. Kihyun still wasn’t a dreamer, and Hyungwon continued growing taller.

It was the summer of two thousand and four when they committed their first independent trip to Los Angeles. Grabbed a couple of friends from school, packed their bags, Hyungwon’s parents gave him extra cash and Kihyun’s mother read him an essay on safety and proper behavior, and they headed out early in the morning.

Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, Kihyun smoked out of the window, bopped his head to Eagles and listened to Hyungwon’s rants about everything in the world. He grew prettier, in the common sense of the word. His dad gave him an ancient silver ring as a present, one that apparently was passed by generation, and he wore it on his fourth right finger. His hands were thin, delicate, and they held the wheel with carelessness only Hyungwon could possess. He smiled at the breeze hitting his face through the open windows, and his grown-out hair fanned back, and he gently nodded his head to the beat.

“So where are we stopping then? Fresno?”

They agreed to meet their friends at the final destination, and they were promised booze and ‘a delightful company’, to quote Mark. If Kihyun’s parents ever found out, he’d never see the end to suffering his mother could inflict. Hyungwon’s oldest brother stayed in Los Angeles after graduation, found a job and a house, and promised them to make this the most unforgettable trip of their youth.

“Fresno? What for? We’re getting to LA today.” Hyungwon looked confused. His brain always short-circuited at the simplest of questions. It was so overloaded with all the unnecessary information about the world, people, history, geography, economics, politics—everything that Kihyun never expected to use in practice himself—that when Hyungwon had to answer about trivial things such as time, he glitched. Like an old computer game.

“For food, you idiot.” Kihyun breathed out with an easy smile and threw a cigarette stub out of the window, turning around to observe the deep blue water, rocky steep hills, rare passing cars.

“Nah, let’s just stick to Route-1 and stop at a gas station.” Hyungwon was still a dreamer, always looking into the distant future and searching for utopia, when the fleeting moments of their soon-to-be-present remained unknown, spontaneous. Hyungwon took things easily. When Kihyun couldn’t stop shaking for a week every time the memory of his very first kiss flashed in his mind, his best friend smiled until his cheeks took up most of his face and softly blushed. His classmates gathered around Hyungwon’s desk, nudged him, asked for details and laughed, and he bit his lip instead, causing another boyish uproar of approval.

Kihyun missed the moment when either of them stopped getting overly excited about the simplest of the things. Maybe it was when Hyungwon’s facial hair started growing—for some reason, he got it before Kihyun—or maybe when Kihyun became awfully self-aware and started losing weight, or maybe when Hyungwon became the ace of their soccer team and gathered a little group of cheerleaders. He wasn’t bulky, or particularly fashionable, or a big flirt, or white for that matter, but he was clever and was amazing at sports and extremely nice to girls, so he automatically counted in most of the friendship groups in school.

It was funny how although Hyungwon kept growing taller and smarter and braver, he never gave up on his aims. He was still determined to change the world, make his family and his country proud, do big things, but he always stuck to the script in his debates, always went line by line and never on the margin, like he was afraid to make a mistake. He was never marked down for it; his points were way too good. Everything about Hyungwon seemed way too good, even his driving was calm and stable.

“Gas station sandwiches it is then.” Kihyun absentmindedly agreed and leaned back in his seat, hoping for a nap and Los Angeles to come to them sooner.

 

It started to get dark sometime after ten, and their friends couldn’t think of anything more entertaining than a picnic on Manhattan Beach; when it was dark and crowdless and risky, and when their friend’s family house, courteously offered to them for the trip, was just twenty minutes down the road towards Hermosa.

“We’ll so get busted, dude.” Mike said as he continued carrying a whole box of beer they were supposed to open and pour into a less conspicuous container.

“That’s why we didn’t go to Venice, duh.” Josh sighed with all the exasperation of the world and plumped down on a towel, carelessly pushing a plastic bag with spirits away, making the glass bottles clink. This made Hyungwon giggle.

They settled on the sand in their big and loud company, San Fran boys and LA girls their friends somehow knew. Kihyun pushed his inner worries about the noise and cops back inside to not seem like a killjoy and resolved to drinking quietly, in his own headspace, leaning on Hyungwon’s shoulder and watching the stars. It was beautiful when it grew fully dark, when distant lights in the black sky blinked at him and calmed his head, when the sand under his feet was warm, and Hyungwon’s blabbering and giggling familiar.

One girl settled right next to his best friend, stealing his attention away, making him shake with laughter, and Kihyun drank faster, tuned out completely, desiring complete peace and quiet that he knew he’d never get but the one he still hoped for.

His illusions were ruined when someone slapped him on the knee. “Yo, K, talk about that one time we went performing in the street just for the sake of it and nearly got attacked.”

“The day I came face to the face with the truth about police brutality.”

Hyungwon’s shoulder was no longer a place of comfort. His body had no immune system to humor, and if he found something funny, he laughed, and he could never stop even if his life depended on staying silent. It was something Kihyun always found both annoying and charming, and it did make him feel better even on the worst days, but the sound, the mood, the emotion—whatever it was that Hyungwon’s laugh was supposed to represent—was only targeted at Kihyun. It didn’t feel right to hear it ring for someone else.

They sat on the beach for hours, alcohol was drained and brains were gone, and Kihyun had long forgotten all his resolutions to find peace when the world had turned to chaos and stars started moving, when half of the people—he didn’t remember how many that was—took off their shirts and ran to the black cold water, when all he could hear was shouting and splashing and smacking. Kihyun had enough mind left to realise he was devastated and very, very upset that there was no more booze left when he saw Hyungwon kissing the girl he was talking to throughout the night. It was dark, and Kihyun’s vision was shaky, and his eyesight wasn’t good in the first place either, but Hyungwon’s hand on her waist and his closed eyes and his crumpled-up t-shirt at the back in a smaller grip were so clear, traceable, like in a cartoon.

And Kihyun didn’t want the alcohol to make him emotional, or angry, or jealous, or anything else alcohol usually made him, but he was a birdwatcher, a visitor sitting outside the cage, observing various creatures of interest living their own life, too dumb, too free, unsuspecting of a hooded pair of eyes tracking every single flap of wings and counting seconds of this voluntary torture. If only Kihyun had his guitar with him, he’d write his misery in tunes.

A wet slap on a shoulder shook him up, and he blinked, turning around to a laughing Johnny wiping his hair with a soaked tank. And while one half of the group ran back to the towels, shouting and spooking an immediately shy Hyungwon and a widely smiling girl, Kihyun jumped up and sprinted to the ocean, taking his t-shirt off and diving headfirst into the cold black water, disappearing into nothingness. A splash was all he wanted to leave after himself. Maybe the tide would bring him back home to San Francisco, smash him against the rocks under his lighthouse, spare his remains to rare sharks and blabbing fish.

Someone probably warned him once that swimming on a drunk head was never a good idea, and Kihyun immediately rushed to the beach. The cold finally pierced through his body, and he ran back to their group to help everyone pack up. Screaming in the middle of the night could cause some trouble. And Kihyun was glad he wasn’t drunk enough to stop worrying about such things, he was glad he was still capable of walking straight and looking back at everything that happened in the span of the last ten minutes, and he froze with a sandy towel in his hands and a slight circular motion in his head. When Kihyun reviewed his childhood, there were a lot of things he missed out on due to the lack of self-awareness, such as the first day of school, or Hyungwon’s first birthday, or the first night in his new home. And with every year he thought just a little bit better of himself, trusted himself to become a little bit more human compared to him of yesterday, but he was still just a teenager, not even tall enough to be considered an adult yet. He still had puberty spots on his face. But so did Hyungwon. And Hyungwon was so much further in life already.

They even held hands on their way back, Hyungwon and the girl. Kihyun never managed to learn her name, never paid attention to anything beside her well-fitted short overalls and pretty black hair and could only see the shape of her teeth in the dark as she smiled. Hyungwon was always awkward with his long stretched-out t-shirts and knee-length shorts, and he enhanced this awkwardness with a hand at the back of his head or over his mouth or poking the shell of his ear, and there was still something to him that was drawing people in, like Hyungwon himself was drawn to knowledge. Or maybe the first thing he told strangers was his position as the ace in their football team, but Kihyun knew it wasn’t true, and Hyungwon was never the one to show off, and he was always the one to take things easily, to just go with the flow he himself created, to turn the sirens on his side and make them show him the way, and they always dragged him to the unknown deepness, to scary sea creatures and drowned battleships, but they always let him rise back onto the surface. And then the tides carried him back home, to Kihyun, to their secret base, to his books, to Internet his parents kindly provided, to his unchangeable dreams and constant snacks that continuously made him grow taller.

And despite the ever-so-gentle smile that never left his lips, Hyungwon seemed to be the only thing actually evolving in the stillness of Kihyun’s world. And although the titles of the books on his shelves kept getting replaced, and his statements of the world kept growing from radical to neutral to extreme to objective to partisan and back to neutral, Hyungwon seemed to be the only thing that remained stable in Kihyun’s soul-made chaos.

And yet every day Hyungwon was not a person Kihyun knew yesterday, and every following day there was something new, unexplored. Something that made Kihyun’s inner voice scream in his head, such as a little playful grin he gave their group of friends when he hid behind one of the bedroom doors with his loyal female companion he met a few hours ago, or suddenly strong thin hands that got into Kihyun’s sight as the other opened the new can of peanut butter the next morning, or the hysterical, never-ending, high-pitched laugh Hyungwon couldn’t hold back in his throat after they spent the entire following night smoking weed.

And Hyungwon, who always took things easily and was much more self-aware and observant, never stopped surprising Kihyun. When he shrugged at the prospect of his first ever sex being a one-time fling, or a perfectly healthy smile one early morning after he passed out drunk, or the precautionary glass of water and a cold toast with chocolate spread Kihyun found some new next morning after it was his turn to black out. Hyungwon was always the one to really gain something from all his experiences, and Kihyun… Kihyun just wondered how his tender smile managed to stay the same after so many years of insane growing up.

 

They stopped by the lighthouse on the way back home. Kihyun wanted to smoke one final cigarette before greeting his mother again after a week—he needed some quiet time to think, to make up appropriate stories, to sit on the familiar old mattress and finally feel Hyungwon’s breath directed only at him. They never had a minute, just the two of them talking, sharing, laughing, and Kihyun missed it. He’d hide it, scoff and shake his head, but he missed it—having just Hyungwon by his side.

And the curiosity was also killing him, and he couldn’t withhold the quick tapping of his foot. “So, wanna share?” Kihyun asked as casually as he could, and Hyungwon, who had his knees pressed to his chest and his chin resting on top of them as he was taking a nap with his eyes open, jerked at the question and raised his head.

“Mm?” He turned to put his cheek on his knees and gave Kihyun a sign that he was listening.

“Well, it’s kind of a big deal among our group now,” Kihyun started and felt unsure, or maybe he was a little shy, because things like that were never discussed in his household and he never had to voice his opinions. “You had sex, and all that.” Kihyun explained, and Hyungwon blinked as a sign that he remembered and then smiled a tiny smile that was too cute for things they were talking about. “How was it?”

Hyungwon shrugged, somehow like how he usually did when words weren’t too necessary to explain something. And Kihyun was honestly taken by surprise. “It was alright.” Hyungwon replied and put his chin on his knees again, looking at the sunset with the calmest expression on his face. Sometimes Kihyun felt like his life was a stupid high school movie, he was a cliché high school character and Hyungwon was his cliché high school best friend, and then he looked over everything that happened before that Los Angeles trip and chased the idea away. He wasn’t worthy of a cliché high school movie, and Hyungwon was too different to fit into an hour and a half long script.

“Just all right?” Kihyun wasn’t going to believe it. It was a real girl Hyungwon had sex with, it wasn’t something his other friends usually just call ‘alright’. Or maybe he needed to grow up and stop overreacting, be like his best friend—just take things easily.

“No, of course I enjoyed it.” Hyungwon pouted in thought and squinted as the last rays of the sun ran down his face, and Kihyun wanted to scoff at the nature’s timing. Like he couldn’t get any more skeptical of, well, everything. “What I mean is, it was good, but I just didn’t feel that little spark of,” Hyungwon started gesturing with his hands, trying to find words, before he gave up and dropped them on the floor, “whatever they all described before, you know?”

Kihyun wasn’t self-aware, but he wasn’t stupid, and he knew that little inner smile that only spread within him whenever he looked at Hyungwon only, and he had it at that moment too, the slight warmth, adoration, a little mush in his chest. “You know, if you wanna be a politician, you should really learn how to speak properly.” He joked, and Hyungwon groaned with a smile on his face.

“It’s only happening now, you know I’m usually better at expressing myself.” He threw his head back and closed his eyes, finding his inner peace and gathering more lexicon and wits.

“Did you at least get it up?” Kihyun couldn’t help a slight grin and tingles of embarrassment in his limbs after the question left his mouth, and Hyungwon frowned in incredulity, grimacing like Kihyun was some kind of fool.

“Of course I did, I’m not a weirdo,” then he straightened and cleared his throat, “Let me rephrase that. I felt, uh, good but I wouldn’t, let’s say, want to date that girl, you know?” He turned to look at Kihyun again, and Kihyun didn’t even care what this conversation was about anymore.

They decided that it was time to come back home and get some decent, sober sleep.

 

Hyungwon was at the point in life when he started making proper detailed plans for the future. They were in the senior year of high school, tests were coming, systems kept changing, Bush was still the president, Hyungwon’s GPA was still the highest, he finally became the soccer team captain, and it was time to start making up minds. And Hyungwon, the best boy of them all, had it all coming with ease. And he was still growing taller.

He had been planning everything throughout the entire junior year, as if the trip to Los Angeles was a lightning that charged him with extra personality traits and ambitions, and he was on top of everything. His parents had money, his three older siblings all went to good colleges across the country, which gave him extra motivation he didn’t even need, he was the captain of the damn soccer team and had invitations coming his way, and he had a lot of things to write about himself, so, yes, it was all easy for him.

And Kihyun? Kihyun had nowhere to go. He didn’t want to make his parents pay for any more of his needs, and he wanted to stay home and help his father. His condition hadn’t been the best in the past years, and he kept telling himself that it would make him feel better to be a useful son. It was the least he could do. He could find a job, work for a couple of years, think about his life for a little longer, earn enough to pay for his education, then maybe apply to some college nearby and be within an accessible distance from his mother. It could all work out, perhaps.

“So, you what, applying Stanford and all that? UCLA?” Kihyun asked once in the lighthouse when he needed time to compose and Hyungwon had to write all his assessments and essays, days before the deadlines.

Hyungwon raised his head and chewed on his bottom lip. “Actually, I’m not applying to anywhere in Cali.” He said with certain uncertainty in his voice, like he wasn’t sure what Kihyun’s reaction could be. Kihyun just raised his eyebrows and bit into the sandwich, surprised but in no way judging. Maybe a fleeting thought of disappointment and a tiny-tiny flash of betrayal ran through his mind, but he paid it no attention. It was Hyungwon they were talking about, he had plans taller than his body.

“Where you wanna go then?”

Hyungwon bit his pen, breathed in, breathed out, “New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey,” he blurted out and gave Kihyun a sheepish smile, “and Washington D.C.”

Kihyun stopped chewing, imagined the map of the States, look at Hyungwon and swallowed. “That’s on the opposite side of the country.”

Hyungwon inhaled sharply through gritted teeth and curved his eyebrows in apologetic gesture. “I know.” He looked down on his countless papers and books and unopened bag of chips. “I’m sorry.”

Kihyun shrugged, pretending like it wasn’t really something that mattered. “I just thought you would tell me about your plans earlier.”

“I only came to this decision in the past week, I swear, and I’m still deciding on my top ten, so I didn’t want to tell you before I was completely sure.” Hyungwon hid his lips in that weird not-smiling gesture and fiddled with his pen, and Kihyun could never stay mad at him, he could never even get angry at him in the first place. Hyungwon was so sincere in everything he did. He read his poetry in front of Kihyun as a form of speech practice, debated with his mom over the dinner table to give himself some confidence before an actual debate in school, and volunteered to coach weaker teams after lessons, because he was the soccer captain and carried that title with honor.

And although everyone knew Hyungwon was great, only Kihyun could admire how truly humble and shy his best friend was.

“And so, I must finish my application to Columbia before November, then the rest of them are coming before December,” few weeks later, and Hyungwon was already ranting about his choices, and prospects, and courses, and plans, and everything he expected the university life would give him. Kihyun found it in himself to be proud of him. “Mom also wants me to apply to Yale, but that’s kind of… not my place, I think. I’d rather choose three more colleges in New York that have a higher acceptance rate than wither away in New Haven, I mean, New Haven? Really?” Kihyun usually listened to his best friend’s rants to learn more about the rest of the world, because, really, he wasn’t the one to give out advice. He hadn’t even been outside of California much.

“And then I looked over the college rating in political science, and if I really-really have to choose another Ivy League university—because my mom wants me to—I’d rather go to Princeton and drive to New York every weekend, I mean, New Jersey is just an hour and a half away, can you believe? Cali can’t even come close to this. I mean, beaches on the east coast can’t compare, but city life? God, Kihyun, it’s dreamlike.” And Kihyun could just nod and nod, knowing how important that whole thing was to Hyungwon but lacking any kind of empathy for it. Hyungwon was going to go, that was for sure. He didn’t even look at any places with acceptance rates higher than thirty percent. And for Kihyun, that said so much about his best friend. Of course, Hyungwon was self-aware, extremely knowing, confident in his intellect and talents, ambitious and diligent, but he was still such a dreamer. And his mom believed in him too—hell, she didn’t have to believe, she knew her son could get anything he wanted, because he was hardworking, and charming, and could play soccer, and was tall, and could write, and was creative and innovative, and was just generally too good for Kihyun to hold on to. Hyungwon wasn’t even dreaming anymore; he was living the dream.

“Do you think I can really do it?” Hyungwon asked some time in winter, after everything was submitted and done, after he decided on every little part of his future career and was then left to overthink and chicken out all on his own. Kihyun took it as a habit to smoke every day after school in their lighthouse, listen to Hyungwon’s quiet muttering that hadn’t disappeared since he was a kid, and look over the beautiful cold sea and grey cloudy sky and the pleasant human-less emptiness.

“You know what I think.” Kihyun thought he grew up too fast in the past year, that the lighthouse became too shabby and old and creaky, and that one day it would crumble down just like all of Kihyun’s expectations and hopes and non-existent plans.

“It’s just that…” Hyungwon rubbed his shoulders, and when he was unsure like that, Kihyun wanted to hug him, stroke his too-long hair, sing him to sleep, because he had been spending too much time studying and practicing and no time sleeping, and he wanted to make sure Hyungwon received all his confirmations and validity and everything else he needed, even if it meant Kihyun was left empty. “You’re right, I don’t know how to say things I want to say, how am I supposed to give speeches?” But Kihyun never reached out because he didn’t know where to aim.

“You know, for our society, it doesn’t matter what you’re talking about, it’s how you’re saying it.” Hyungwon turned to look at him with his big curious eyes, and Kihyun lighted another cigarette because they were going to stay there for another while. “People vote for whoever they think looks and sounds powerful enough to lead the country. They don’t even listen to the content of their bullshit, they only perceive the sounds and tones, and if they find them satisfying, they vote.” Hyungwon seemed to think about it as he looked up and chewed on the inside of his cheek, nodding from side to side as he led silent debates in his mind.

“So, even if I’m the cleverest candidate the world has ever witnessed, no one would listen unless I make a show out of it?”

Kihyun hummed in confusion, “That’s a more poetic way of saying it, but I think that’s what I’m saying.”

Hyungwon seemed to find it a satisfactory answer and nodded with a tiny gentle smile he always had when he felt grateful for something small. And the longer Kihyun spent with Hyungwon, the more he forgot about himself and his own priorities. He had to be home early to help his father out with work, to cook dinner with his mother, to look for jobs, to have some time to think on his own with his dear guitar in his hands, but the more time he spent away from his best friend, the more he thought about him, the bigger that longing grew. And he always got on his bike, rode to Hyungwon’s house and knocked on the front door. Hyungwon’s mom always greeted him, offered him food, asked him about his life, and then told him her son was upstairs studying. He was always studying, doing something extra that would expand his abilities and add another new trait to his impeccable personality.

“Hey, what’s up?” Kihyun came into Hyungwon’s bedroom, knocking on the door frame a little too late. The other was sitting by his desk, listening to music through the headphones, notes and papers and everything laying around him in some creative disorganisation, and Kihyun couldn’t care less about any of it when Hyungwon turned around and smiled, taking the headphones off.

“Hey.” And he was always so softly-spoken, even in his room when it was just the two of them.

“Wanna get out? I’m bored.” Kihyun shrugged and hid his hands in his pocket to seem as casual as possible, already expecting a rejection and pushing the building up disappointment further down his throat.

Hyungwon smiled apologetically, curving his eyebrows and pulling his lips together. “I’m sorry, I have to study.” Hyungwon’s eyes were always big, always full of genuine emotions, like those of a puppy Kihyun never had. Sometimes Kihyun even thought Hyungwon was pretty.

“You’re always studying,” he wanted to say it was alright, that he understood, that Hyungwon had to take care of his future, but sometimes words came out first and acted out on their own, and Kihyun couldn’t turn back time. Sometimes he agreed with what his subconsciousness told him. “You have to take breaks. Plus, I don’t like feeling neglected.” The last statement was supposed to be a joke—Kihyun even grinned, he really did—but somehow it felt more real.

“I know, but I really can’t tonight.” And Hyungwon always said it in such a genuine voice that Kihyun couldn’t be upset for too long. He’d just write his loneliness in music.

“Alright. But there’s a party this weekend, at Tom’s, you’re obviously invited, and you’re coming with me.” Kihyun pressed on the last part, emphasising the fact that he wasn’t going to let this one slip, and Hyungwon smiled more cheerfully.

“Okay, I will.” And when Kihyun raised his eyebrow, threw his hands in the air and laughed. “Promise!”

Kihyun was satisfied with that. Hyungwon never turned back on his promises. “Okay. I’m watching you.” He said and squinted, and Hyungwon laughed again, and Kihyun left his house feeling just as lonely. He frequently contemplated that feeling, measuring that strange hole in his heart, wondering why it never clogged up, why every time the door behind Hyungwon closed it grew wider instead, why it learned to speak and whispered unwanted things into Kihyun’s ear every night. And it continued for so long he gave up and listened, touched his chest and counted the heartbeat, thought of his best friend and felt it sped up, and then sighed deeply before hugging his pillow and trying to fall asleep.

Compared to when they were children, Christmas celebrations with their families finished after dinner rather than started, and now that they were both close to adulthood, they were allowed to get out and enjoy the magical holiday spirit late at night. The time of the day never mattered though. They were always going to go to the lighthouse.

Hyungwon brought LED lights, Kihyun snuck champagne from his father’s drawer, and they watched a horror film on a tiny portable DVD player Hyungwon’s father lent him. And like that, surrounded by the warm yellow light from the snowflake-shaped lights, sharing the bottle of champagne and laughing at something dumb the main characters of the movie did, Kihyun felt good. They heard fireworks somewhere in the distance, somewhere on the opposite side of the rocky hills behind the highway, Kihyun didn’t care. He liked having Hyungwon leaning on his shoulder in his stupid Santa Claus hat and in his stupid reindeer sweater he wore absolutely unironically for the family dinner, and he liked talking to him about stupid things, and sometimes smart things, and sometimes stupid and smart things that didn’t matter in the end, because high school was coming to an end, and everything was going to change.

 

Spring arrived sooner than expected. Kihyun wished he had money and opportunities to fly out of the States and go somewhere where he could feel free and unrestricted by the law, now that Hyungwon was also eighteen. Maybe they could organize a trip somewhere far away that summer, just the two of them, no classmates, no LA girls, no worries. That would be everything Kihyun could ask for.

“Hey, Kihyun?” Hyungwon called one day as they were sitting in the lighthouse and waiting for the seagulls to come back from migration. He read that the population of California gulls increased. Maybe they would see more that summer. “What’s your opinion on gay people?” The question came out of nowhere, and when Kihyun turned to look at his best friend, he seemed half his usual size, all folded up, chin on his knees and knees pressed to his chest. His hair grew longer, covering his eyes and only leaving the tip of his nose and mouth to see the world, so Hyungwon started styling his hair to the sides, using gels and brushes and hair dryers, like he was suddenly concerned about his looks. A little bit more concerned than he usually was.

“Don’t know. Don’t really care.” Kihyun sighed and put his chin on his own knees too. “We’re all gay.” The warmer it got, the clearer the sky was, and Kihyun waited for the day the ocean turned transparent again like it always was when he was spending his summers with his best friend. Kihyun found enough bravery within himself to admit he hated San Francisco, hated huge family mansions and insufferably hot weather, but he grew attached to everything he hated. Hyungwon’s house, bike races under the boiling sun in summer, trips to the very heart of the city, leisurely weekends on the beach. He feared the summer as much as he anticipated it.

“I guess, to a certain extent, we all are.” Hyungwon sighed and buried his face in his knees, and Kihyun didn’t like to drown his head in unnecessary garbage that was his thoughts, so he put his hand on his best friend’s back and started writing a tune in his head. Something about love, probably.

If Kihyun was asked if he remembered the exact day his life came crumbling down, he wouldn’t be able to answer. Maybe it was when his father lost any ability in his legs, or maybe when he made Hyungwon cry once when they were ten and couldn’t forgive himself for that, or maybe when he realized he wasn’t like all the other guys in school and developed a fear of talking to his mother, or maybe he never had a life in the first place, maybe it was never meant to happen since the moment he was born. Or maybe it was the day they went to that after-prom party at that guy’s house, when he rejected a ride from his partner Wendy—a friend of his, no romantic attraction whatsoever—and joined Hyungwon and the girl he went with.

Kihyun was drunk—they secretly downed a bottle of vodka-coke in the male toilet with his friends—and was now forced to be awkwardly squished between the door and the girl as they sat on the backseat of a taxi, driving to some party he knew he was going to regret. Hyungwon looked good that night, in his perfect suit with his hair perfectly styled, and he looked twice as good when he smiled and reciprocated some initiated kisses from the girl, and Kihyun was too drunk to care about the situation being awkward. If he was raised in a more loving household, maybe he’d shout and boo and joke around, because he was a cool fun friend everyone loved having around, but instead he just tried his hardest not to stare and waiting for the party to come to them with more booze.

And it was hard to track the moment his thoughts always took a downturn. Maybe he was still going through puberty, maybe his hormones were still playing around and doing a shitty job at helping his organism grow, or maybe he was always a little bit on edge because he never got the chance to let any of the piled up emotions out, but he finally, for the first time in a long while, found it in himself to cry.

It was somehow more painful seeing Hyungwon making out with a guy that night. God, he kissed so many drunk people already just by walking around the party-filled house, and Kihyun already lost track of it, his best friend, himself, the alcohol he consumed. But he always bumped into him after a while, always found him with either another red cup or a girl by his side, but this time, really, this time even in the dark and with blurry shaky vision Kihyun could see how much more vigorously Hyungwon kissed back the guy pressed against the wall compared to all the other girls he saw before.

Oh, Hyungwon was on top of his game, he was the real star in the sky, always so good at everything and to everyone, too good to be true, and even this time he really proved it again, pushing everything Kihyun could have had right into his face, like the real asshole that he actually was. And maybe it was the booze, or maybe it was the stupid fucking hormones, or maybe someone pushed him, but Kihyun crumbled a plastic cup he was holding, unknown liquid in it spilling over the edge and dripping down his hand, and he threw the useless thing on the floor with so much anger he had troubles breathing. The drink spread on the floor, the cup bounced off in the unknown direction, a few confused looks turned to look at him, and even Hyungwon suddenly got distracted from his favorite activity and turned away from the guy to see Kihyun staring back at him.

Then Kihyun turned around and went for the exit, as fast as he could in his drunk state of mind.

“Kihyun!” The voice hit him at the same time as the night breeze hit his face, and he had no intention of turning around. “Kihyun, wait!”

“What!” He snapped, and as always, as it only worked for Hyungwon, he could see his best friend clearly, his tousled styled-up hair and big eyes, and it was unfair that his body always betrayed him like that.

“Don’t leave, please, why are you leaving?” Hyungwon pleaded in his usual gentle voice, only this time he was slurring words together and looked a little unstable on his shaky legs. It could be because he was drunk, or it could be because he was grinding on someone else just a minute ago, but Kihyun wasn’t in the mood for getting soft. “Was it something I did? I’m so sorry, but please don’t leave.” Hyungwon took more steps towards him but had to stop on one place and hold his head.

And Kihyun promised himself to stay strong and tough, to not let Hyungwon’s big wet eyes and apologetic gentle voice get to him, and he was about to turn around again and leave this goddamn place, but his body never listened to him, and he felt his own eyes getting teary. “Oh, you’ve done nothing wrong, Hyungwon, not everything is about you! I don’t care if you’re making out with a girl or dude or a fucking cow, it doesn’t fucking matter!” He didn’t notice when his voice cracked, and he started shouting, but Hyungwon looked startled, and Kihyun had to fight the urge to run up to him and apologize because, no matter how hurt he got for no reason whatsoever, he could never stay mad at the other boy.

“Then why are you running away?” Hyungwon muttered quietly, and Kihyun’s heart shattered into million tiny pieces, each of them screaming at him to stop being a stubborn idiot, but he was tired of being the better person, tired of his mother ordering him around and making him own up for his mistakes, tired of feeling like there was nothing he could do about his future because life didn’t like him that much, tired of Hyungwon being so good at everything and to everyone, too good to be true, too good for Kihyun to want to ask for something more.

“Because I love you, I don’t know!” He shouted again, and when the words left his throat, tears slid down his cheeks, and there was no relief in what he just said, because Hyungwon remained on the same place, just his eyes got a little sadder. “In that way, I guess, I don’t know. I don’t know, okay? I just want to leave.” Kihyun wiped his eyes and walked away, and did those tiny million pieces of his heart screamed at him to freeze and turn around, to run back to Hyungwon and apologize, to explain everything to him, but he ignored every single shout behind him, knowing that the other was too unstable to catch up with him. And the further he went, the more he hated himself for everything, hated Hyungwon for asking him stupid questions, hated him for being so good all the time, hated him for wanting to move away from California, hated him for taking things so easily, hated him for not feeling the same as Kihyun did, hated him for just accepting Kihyun’s hate as a given instead of fighting it, forcing him to snap out of it and giving him a painful slap on the cheek, because in that moment, it was the only thing he deserved. 

The way back home was an hour walk down the empty, poorly-lit highway.

 

Kihyun realized he never asked Hyungwon about his future plans. The ones he had already established, the ones he had already began acting upon. School was over, and Kihyun hadn’t seen his best friend since the prom night, because he was stupid, dumb, dense, an absolute moron and a shithead, and he missed Hyungwon. It took him a couple of days to accept the fact that he accidentally drunk-confessed to his best friend, and that he shouted at him in the process, and that it was too stupid to be true, but it happened, and Kihyun regretted every single detail about it.

“Heard your friend is leaving for university soon?” His mother’s voice hit him as she put the remaining food on the table.

“Mm?” Kihyun raised his head from the book he wasn’t really reading, too engulfed in his regrets and misery he brought upon himself, and any extra reminder about Hyungwon wasn’t really necessary.

“Hyungwon’s going to New York this week. Didn’t you know he got offered a place in Columbia? What a clever kid.” His father didn’t find it important to put his newspaper down, and Kihyun had to quickly start chewing again as the strange shock passed through his body. Hyungwon never told him, Kihyun never asked. And as much as he wanted to take the blame, to be the better person, he knew it was his friend that decided to be shitty, to let Kihyun indulge the illusion that they were going to stay together forever, that they had a whole summer to travel and live their life, that Hyungwon was at least partially concerned about him, that Kihyun meant something to him, that he would be the first person the other would tell such important news to. He was hiding it for months.

“Yeah, I’m not surprised he got in.” Kihyun instead replied unenthusiastically and sat through the rest of the lunch without any appetite or happy conversation topics. He just wanted to be left alone.

Every single time Hyungwon drove over to his, he begged his mother to tell him he wasn’t there, and after the second lie he started leaving his home for good, going anywhere but the lighthouse or Hyungwon’s house. He biked around in useless searches for a new place of inspiration, hung out with friends that weren’t Hyungwon and that could never compare, and it was stupid, moronic, imbecilic, Kihyun was just running away from himself and the truth, from his best friend, from the only person he genuinely loved and cared for, and he didn’t know why it was so much easier avoiding everything than coming face to face with the screaming pieces of his heart he broke the night he committed a million mistakes.

He heard that Hyungwon was going to leave the next day from his mother. He knew Hyungwon wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, and Kihyun suspected he would feel a little bit—a little bit too much—pain if he let Hyungwon leave without seeing him one last time. So he went to the lighthouse, for the first time in two weeks that he spent hiding away like a coward. He knew it was the first place Hyungwon would go looking.

He didn’t want to go up, didn’t want to smell the dust and the old mattress and the ghosts of the past twelve years they spent together in their secret base, didn’t want to see everything they’d been through, didn’t want to hear the tunes Kihyun composed, the poetry Hyungwon wrote, the ideas they shared, the questions they left unanswered. Kihyun stayed on the cliff, breathing in the salty breeze and listening to the seagulls, letting the sun burn his eyes and the tides take his thoughts away, into the faraway nothingness that Kihyun had always been reaching for.

He heard tires grunting, a car door slamming, and quick long steps thumping on the dry rocky ground. Hyungwon looked pretty that day. He styled his hair again like he always seemed to do for the past few months, and he changed his fashion to shirts and black pants, and he felt so much like home. California wouldn’t be home without Hyungwon.

“Hey…” Hyungwon called quietly, in his usual gentle voice, in the voice Kihyun heard growing louder and braver for a decade and more. Who knew when he was going to ever hear it again.

“You’re leaving.” Kihyun couldn’t allow Hyungwon to close the distance between them, the miserable five long steps separating them, and there was nothing more he wanted than to hold his best friend in his arms and never let him go, drop everything and leave to New York with him, see him acquire new ridiculous personality traits and the weird northern accent, fight for human rights and eventually rule the world like he always dreamed of ever since he was a little kid. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m—”

“Hyungwon, the results came in April. It’s been months. Months!” He didn’t mean to shout, he never meant to shout when Hyungwon was around, and he especially never meant to shout at Hyungwon himself, but it must have been the days of piled up emotions, or the stupid hormones that couldn’t find their fucking balance, or the protective instinct that wasn’t protecting anyone from anything. Kihyun always preferred to sing than shout.

“I’m sorry.” Hyungwon looked down at his feet. The breeze ruffled his hair and his clothes, making him seem somehow more fragile than he usually did, like he was about to be taken by the wind, like the free bird that he was. “I didn’t want to make it seem like we were running out of time.” Hyungwon could’ve started accusing Kihyun of not asking him first, could’ve thrown back a snarky remark that Kihyun definitely deserved, but he justified himself instead, because he was always too good to people, too honest. Without Hyungwon, Kihyun’s world would have been a black chaotic emptiness in which nothing ever happened, nothing good, nothing honest, nothing that would shine a light, and Hyungwon was always that weak source of light in Kihyun’s life that grew stronger and brighter with each year.

“So you’re just gonna go.” Kihyun wanted to slap himself, and then slap Hyungwon for looking so fucking apologetic like everything was his fault, like it was his fault he was so damn clever and so good at sports, like it was his fault his parents were kind and rich, like it was his fault he opened all these opportunities for himself. Kihyun was always meant to stay in California. “You’re just gonna go, leave me behind, have your bright future and forget about me then.” And even though it never snowed in California, Kihyun was cold, from his own heart.

“I will visit!” Hyungwon tried to take a step forward, but Kihyun moved back, and his best friend’s eyes were big and wet, like those of a lost kicked puppy, and Kihyun hated himself so much. “I will always visit, and we’ll spend Christmas together, I won’t ever leave you behind.” It was always this hard with Hyungwon. He was too sincere, too sincere for his own good, and he always made Kihyun want to cry because no matter how much he internally screamed at himself, his body was weak to commands, and he could never stop the words from coming out.

“You know what, forget about it.” He didn’t want Hyungwon to forget, he didn’t want him to leave, he wanted to forget anything happened and just sit in the lighthouse tower like in the good old days, Kihyun would smoke and listen to his best friend’s rants, Hyungwon would think of something new to do and impress Kihyun with. Life was so much easier back then, even though this back then was just a few weeks ago. “You’re gonna go, I get it. You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna take care of my disabled dad, listen to them constantly comparing me to you, because you’ve always been that goodie-two-shoes with everything the world could possibly offer. You have everything, Hyungwon.” My heart too, Kihyun wanted to add, but stopped himself in time when he saw a tear slipping down Hyungwon’s cheek, hanging on his chin and eventually falling down for its own good, disappearing forever. Kihyun wished he was a tear, significant for one moment and absolutely irrelevant in the next, so useless he just vanished into nothingness. “You don’t need me in your life anymore, I get it.”

“Kihyun, it’s not—”

“Just leave!”

Hyungwon never managed to say the words he meant to say, and when Kihyun was left alone, sitting on the warm rocky ground, smoking and waiting for the marines to appear in the horizon, he only remembered Hyungwon’s thin disappearing figure as he walked away, towards his car, towards his bright new future that Kihyun was never meant to be a part of. He cried as soon as the car door closed and Hyungwon drove away, leaving Kihyun alone with his regretful words and useless tears, leaving him staring into the distance, in the opposite direction of where his friend was heading. The million torn heart pieces screamed at him to call him, make him come back, but Kihyun knew better than to commit a few more regretful mistakes.

In the end, Hyungwon was a free bird. He was Rhiannon, taken by the wind, promised in heaven and living in everything Kihyun considered his. He was a free bird, flying far, in places unknown and scary and yet always coming back alive. Kihyun was a little stupid aquarium fish, and for him, the deepness of the ocean, destructive tides and cold north seas were above the line of his dreaming. He could only rock back and forth in the weak waves by the beach, waiting for a tide strong enough to push him on the ground and leave him drying out on the sand. After all, despite the endless nature, they were all held back by their own limits.

Everyone Kihyun had ever known, apart from Hyungwon. 

Hyungwon stole his childhood, his ocean, his heart, and Kihyun never thought he’d be as afraid of changes than he had the moment he realized what he had just done. No, Kihyun wasn’t on the ground, wasn’t unbreakable, wasn’t a birdwatcher. He was a pond, always there, he was glass, shattered as soon as the first crack appeared, he was the bird in the cage, trapped forever in the world he himself refused to escape. When Hyungwon was digging his own path across the United States, Kihyun built walls, comforting but weak, blown away with the first storm.

And Kihyun hated Hyungwon, hated him for causing feelings, hated him for leaving those feelings unrequited, hated him for not visiting for Thanksgiving, hated him for not having Facebook, hated him for being so good at everything and to everyone apart from Kihyun himself.

For the first time in fourteen years he had a best friend, it was the first Christmas Kihyun spent alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so to clear the confusion, this part covers the time line between 2012-2018

It took Kihyun six years to leave San Francisco.

The years he spent dreading change as much as he dreaded the routine he was living. At first it was work, his mother’s ageing reprimands, his father’s rapidly deteriorating health. Then it was college he paid for with his own money, four years of music and only music, more part-time jobs and more of his mother’s nagging. The past year had been a bleak after his father’s death. Kihyun carried on living like normal, composing and biking around, getting his internships, earning his money, waiting for something good to happen, moving around like a ghost of something that used to be material before.

Kihyun lived routines his whole life, and he never wanted to get out of it as much as he did after receiving everything he needed—degree and freedom. Nothing bounded him to his home anymore, there was nothing left for him to do in San Francisco. He frequently told himself that nothing ever chained him to his home before either—his mother didn’t need him, and his father wasn’t particularly grateful about the help. Kihyun couldn’t leave because he didn’t know what else he could do. He remembered himself to be a weird kid—he never dreamed of anything, wasn’t full of plans or expectations, didn’t have any visions of the future. He forced to keep his life a routine, even though his mind never left the chaos it was living in.

Longing for Hyungwon seemed to be the only constant that remained all throughout the years. Even his father wasn’t as eternal as the stupid tall boy he once had the honor to call his best friend.

He hadn’t visited a single time. A single goddamn time. Kihyun hated his lonely summers and his lonely winters, hated Hyungwon for never reaching out to him, hated him for leaving in the first place. The same year he left, Kihyun went to the lighthouse by himself, cold and alone, watching the ocean and the emptiness behind it, believing that his friend wouldn’t leave him to his solitude on Christmas. But it happened the next Christmas, and the Christmas after that. Kihyun gave up on his stupid hopes and celebrated the following Christmas with his college friends, drinking until he could see stars in his eyes and singing carols until his throat bled.

And then it all calmed down. A million of those tiny shattered pieces of his heart glued back together and stopped screaming at him with voices full of regret and pain. With Hyungwon being gone out of his life, Kihyun could finally see the person he himself was becoming. He even thought that it was for the better, the absence of his once best friend. When there was no one to busy his mind with, he suddenly became fully self-aware, in the way he couldn’t be all his early life. He climbed the mountain and turned around, and his entire path opened wide in front of him, and he could finally see. It was for the better that Hyungwon was gone, because then Kihyun could write his loneliness in music, beautiful music he didn’t know he was capable of.

His mother didn’t understand the extent of his obsession, criticized his choice of dedicating four years to a useless degree, covered her ears whenever Kihyun locked himself in his room for days just to compose. He cried his misery in notes and tunes. Until one day she listened, watched him perform in the conservatory as part of his assessment and asked what he genuinely wanted to do with all that. And Kihyun never wanted to do anything in his life. He was never a dreamer, but a big-time believer. He found… context to his life, put things in place and looked over the vastness of the ocean, California coasts he called home, heard the phantom tunes he had been writing on the familiar grounds his entire life, and closed his eyes, imprinting the image behind his lids, not knowing where to take it but sure that it was the last time he’d see the pink-coral sunsets of the San Francisco Bay.

And when just the two of them remained, his mother and him, he saw the chains slowly dispersing, dragging him out of his home and tugging him across the world, to freedom he never dared yearn for. So, he sent applications to the best music colleges across the States and received something he didn’t think he ever could—recognition. And although the future was still uncertain, although his wish to get another degree in music made no sense, although his wasn’t doing that well financially, he spent those months of waiting in hope, imagining the moment he’d get the invitation and the happiness he’d feel. 

Day after the election, he held his mother close, listened to her swear at the television, said goodbye to everything he wasn’t going to miss, grabbed his packed bags and headed to the airport, to catch his flight to New York.

 

Kihyun didn’t know how long he was going to stay, and as a precautious person that he was, he rented a small apartment in Queens for a month. It was affordable, in an old vintage-like neighborhood that was too different to everything Kihyun had ever known. It was beautiful in its own way. New York didn’t have the California sunsets, was colder and so much more crowded, it was independent, in the way San Francisco couldn’t compare. Kihyun had only known private beach mansions, pretty small city houses with the central skyscrapers as the background, the Golden Gate Bridge, blue water, blue sky and hills, hills everywhere. Kihyun had always been the odd one out for biking. When the rest of his world drove in shiny little cars, he lived a life of a pedestrian, a passenger. Maybe this was why he lost his life direction—he couldn’t drive, and never learned how to.

New York was aesthetically pleasing. Kihyun wasn’t a romantic, didn’t like literature, wasn’t the one to have his head in the clouds, but he could hear jazz tunes emanating from the red brick walls as he took a stroll down Brooklyn, people jumping out of their cars and dancing on the Manhattan Bridge, money falling down the Empire State Building. Someone could make a film out of this.

He let himself be a tourist for a couple of days, allowed himself to relax and try street food, met some of his old friends whom he told about his visit, got drunk in a whole new world, saw the skyscrapers spinning above him, and took a long ride on a famous yellow taxi, shakily snapping a picture of it afterwards. It was good to get away from the routine, and Kihyun didn’t know why he feared it that much.

He did, however, come with the mission. He had to look around the colleges he got invitations from, choose something he liked the most, and then, well, see where life took him. He could stay in New York for the winter, see the snow, wait until his auditions in early spring and buy a permanent place, a least for the next couple of years. He didn’t know how people did it—planned everything with certainty, knew where they wanted to be, had solid ideas and expectations. Kihyun just wanted to wake up without a hangover the next morning and buy a new suit for his meeting.

But when Kihyun got up, cooked breakfast, made coffee and looked out of the window onto the bright yet gray street, simple brick buildings opposite, people running to places, he thought that he’d never escape the routine he craved to get out of, and that no matter where life brought him, he could never escape the fear of the unknown.

He dressed appropriately to make an impression. In the end, it was his chance to get accepted into one of the best—if not the best—music colleges in the States, and although it had never been his dream, he really saw it as an opportunity to prove something to himself. Prove what exactly, he hadn’t decided yet, but he knew there was something he was striving after. A job, perhaps.

New York City was busy in the morning, and although living without a car was easier there than in California, Kihyun only realized his doom after he spent thirty minutes getting to the subway station and another half an hour riding the train straight to the Upper West Side, getting out where he thought was appropriate. Turned out he was wrong, and Lincoln Center was another thirty-minute walk Kihyun definitely wasn’t looking forward to. He was a precautious person, always getting up early and leaving long before appointed time, so, grabbing coffee and a croissant from a café, he decided on a stroll, walking along skyscrapers in construction and straight neat roads, houses and offices, not only feeling, but smelling the different vibe he never quite got back home. It was comforting, in a way. It was like he was told that it was okay to wear a suit and go to places in proud solitude, that no one was going to judge him and that even his yearly salary couldn’t afford a room in one of those red brick houses he passed by so often.

The amount of tall buildings was fascinating. Kihyun strayed away down to Midtown, further from his destination but closer to the life of the city, and he couldn’t find it in himself to worry about time and good impressions when the sun started to shine and reflect off smooth glass surfaces, giving the city a faint glow and life that wasn’t only gathered in people that populated it. It was in more than just living souls, it was in the architecture, noise, artificial lights and insane amount of stories told in the streets that never sleep. Kihyun couldn’t see far, wasn’t exposed to the light, was cornered by buildings left and right, yet he didn’t feel trapped, not at all. It was the endless Pacific Ocean capturing him from all sides that kept him in his shell, and it was the endless blue sky, and the eternal hilly roads that lead to nowhere. But in the end, San Francisco was his home, and New York only welcomed him as a visitor.

It was funny, ironic even, how as soon as Kihyun thought of California, a ghost from the past dared to tug him by the shoulder and make him lose his sense of direction. It was the fate’s joke to cast a light upon the person he managed to exclude from every trace of his mind. It was like life was laughing to his face—how could he think of home and not remember the only person that made it home? How could he simply throw three quarters of his life out of the window with no shame and carry on living like normal, focus on himself and follow his own ambitions? Didn’t he always have someone else to dedicate his music to? Kihyun wasn’t allowed to compose for himself, wasn’t allowed to leave the San Fran coast and all the memories linked with it, wasn’t allowed to grow up. And the heart he so carefully put together, shattered into million tiny pieces again, only this time they were screaming about his foolishness, his undeserved bravery, his past mistakes and forgotten confessions he no longer expressed in words.

“Kihyun?” God, he was always so soft-spoken. He always knew what to say and always chose the right tone, was gentler with words than with his little sister when she was still just a baby, always had something sincere in everything he uttered. Kihyun felt like he heard his name for the first time, his real name, what it meant and what it was to other people. He felt the two miserable syllables run down his limbs and spine and dragging his heart with it, turning it into stone, because he missed it, the gentle voice and the big sparkling eyes that always looked like those of a happy loyal puppy that hadn’t aged a day since eighteen. Six years later, and Hyungwon never lost his precious tender smile.

“Hey,” Kihyun managed to mutter and finally allowed the thoughts to bring him back to the ground. It was really Hyungwon right in front of him, really him, his best friend, even though he changed into an almost unrecognizable young man. It was funny Kihyun only opened his eyes, really opened his eyes, when the sun slid down to illuminate the other man, when it played in his now dark brown styled hair, warmed his well-fitted black suit, reflected in his always warm big eyes that were somehow different to how they used to be before. And yet, they were so familiar, so painfully homey, like they just said a temporary goodbye to San Francisco and still carried the dreamy glow in them. And he still, goddamn it, he still continued growing taller.

“Oh, my god, Kihyun,” Hyungwon smiled and took a step forward, hands rising and palms facing forward, as if to hug Kihyun. But he stepped away, unwillingly. He didn’t know why, but when the shadow from the tall glass skyscraper hid him in its gloomy cold arms, he felt comforted. As if he always belonged there, on the dark side. Hyungwon didn’t move any further. He stayed in the sun, where he always belonged. “I haven’t seen you in years, what is this coincidence, I—” He stopped himself in time and pressed his lips together, discouraged by Kihyun’s absolute lack of response. And what could Kihyun say? He never truly loved the California waters. He escaped what he hated the most just to be reminded why he hated it all in the first place. Nothing back home seemed meaningful without Hyungwon by his side. “Anyways, what brought you to New York?” And even if Hyungwon could read the chaos in Kihyun’s head, he didn’t let it get to him. He smiled and grabbed the paper cup of coffee he was holding with both hands, giving Kihyun his undivided attention. He didn’t want this attention. He didn’t want to be there.

“I’m…” Maybe he was lying to himself, saying he didn’t want to see Hyungwon. He didn’t love him, didn’t harbor any feelings he once had as a teenager, he was endlessly and blindly mad at him, he erased his existence out of his memory for good, and he could never forget the hate he felt when every few months the realization that his best friend was never going to visit him dawned upon him, and yet he was there. Hyungwon was there, inexplicably different and yet so familiar. Somehow beautiful in the most poetic sense of the word. “I applied for masters in a few colleges, uhm,” Kihyun didn’t understand the sudden quietness and shyness of his voice that always carried so much power, the voice he gained merits with, the voice that guided his once best friend on the life path he dreamed of. “I’m doing music. I got an invitation from the Juilliard School, so I’m heading there for a bit of a tour.”

Hyungwon’s face had always reflected every single emotion. It wasn’t hard to guess how he felt, and seeing his widened sparkling eyes and open mouth and raised shoulders gave Kihyun the feeling he hadn’t experienced in years. Frankly, since he’d been gone. And Kihyun knew that the expression of pleasant surprise and approval was genuine. “Seriously? This is so good, I’m so proud of you, I mean, you’re really out here, in New York, I can’t get my head around it.” Hyungwon smiled widely, and something about that smile was as always different yet somehow to familiar it hurt. He lost weight, Hyungwon, his face seemed to much smaller and sulkier. Maybe it was the teeth. They were whiter, and straighter, and prettier, and Kihyun still couldn’t get his head around the fact that Hyungwon grew up with him. It wasn’t the boy he circled his entire life around. It was a man, and Kihyun couldn’t tell if what he already knew about him was sufficient to read him.

Kihyun stared too long. Hyungwon hid his teeth behind a thin yet friendly smile that always puffed his cheeks a little bit more, and his delicate manicured nails gently tapped on the paper cup of coffee, and his eyes looked down on him with notes of everything Kihyun didn’t quite know how to express. Perhaps with something similar to resentment, or apology, or longing, or desire to reach out and touch. His shoulder suddenly felt cold. And though he’d love to stand on one place and just stare for as long as he was allowed to, Kihyun was a person of manners, and so he offered a small smile and nodded in Hyungwon’s direction. “And what about you? What have you been doing?”

The other smiled and looked down, shrugged like he used to do when he was a kid, and it was the usual shy expression Hyungwon always had when someone complimented him, made his achievement an even bigger deal than they already were. “Well, I finished college, took a year off to earn some money for grad school. I’m working on ABC News right now, in a political sector.” Hyungwon snickered and crinkled his eyes, and Kihyun couldn’t withhold a little huffed out laugh back, because he hadn’t changed, not at all. He still strived for more, like the very clever ambitious boy he had always been.

“Thought ABC wasn’t that democratic?” Hyungwon laughed at that, and the sun touched his face that was somehow paler than how Kihyun remembered it to be.

“I’d say they take on a more neutral stance, but they do step over the Democrat line, if you look at graphs.” He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I also write for New York Times occasionally.” He smiled like he knew what he said was something to be proud of, and Kihyun raised his eyebrows in an impressed gesture, because for a second there, he forgot that he hadn’t seen Hyungwon in six years, that the man in front of him was a fully renewed person with history and even more achievements and goals.

“Sounds like something you would do.” Kihyun said with an unintentional warm smile, and Hyungwon giggled, and it felt natural to be standing in the middle of the street, talking about things they always talked about when they were younger.

“Who did you vote for?” And Hyungwon’s expression was always sneaky just like that, with that eternal tender smile and little playful gleam in his eyes.

“Obama.” Kihyun couldn’t contain the slight roll of his eyes at the predictable question, and Hyungwon’s face seemed even brighter than it was a second ago. It was like he bloomed hearing the answer, like he suddenly cracked every single struggle Kihyun faced back home and now that he was finally free of invisible chains he forged around himself, Hyungwon could say he was proud of what Kihyun was and what he became. Even though he himself didn’t know what he was.

“I’m really glad to see you.” He said calmly with the softest smile on his face, and the light played in his smooth brown strands and short eyelashes and in the same silver ring his father gave him for his sixteenth birthday, and Kihyun’s heart twitched in his chest, reminding him of their last years of friendship, of the time Hyungwon was the closest to him yet so different and unfamiliar, when he was growing and changing and evolving, when he was building his plans to leave, when he left, when he never visited. And suddenly, it hurt again.

“Why didn’t you come to my father’s funeral?” Kihyun couldn’t catch the words that left his lips in the moment of emotional contemplation. Hyungwon breathed in, and the genuine cheerful smile turned into the one of resentment, and he looked down, probably picking his words. “They wanted to see you there, you know? Even your parents came.” And Kihyun didn’t sound bitter, and he wasn’t bitter, he was just… betrayed. And disappointed, because he was yet again abandoned by his once best friend in the time of need. It wasn’t a desperate time, it wasn’t severe, it wasn’t tough, but Kihyun didn’t have anyone else that knew his history, didn’t have anyone else to share negativity with. Hyungwon was always the only one that knew everything about Kihyun.

“I’m sorry.” He bit his lip and tapped on the cup, before glancing at his watch and breathing in, a small gentle smile back on his lips. “I have to run, I start work in ten minutes, but I really need—want—to see you again, Kihyun.” He blabbered and smiled wider, already taking steps back in the direction he was heading. “How about dinner sometime this week?”

“Hyungwon, this it—” Not what he wanted, not what he expected, but seemed like the other man learned how to stand up for himself and insist on his viewpoints, because he raised his eyebrows and unnoticeably turned his smile into a little grin, walking backwards with a shrug.

“There is a lot to catch up on, and I promise, I will tell you everything.” And he kept moving away, a tall handsome stranger Kihyun still couldn’t quite put in place. But Hyungwon never turned back on his promises, and Kihyun found it in himself to believe in miracles.

“But how are you gonna—” He raised his voice a little belatedly as Hyungwon was a good few meters away, and the other man spun around and raised his coffee cup in the air.

“I’ll find you on Facebook, I’ll do whatever it takes to see you!” He shouted back and gave him another one of his wide smiles. And then he picked up his pace and quickly walked away, well-fitted suit pants clinging to his figure like silk, reflecting the sunlight with every step he took, reminding Kihyun of everything he could never have.

 

Hyungwon was a bastard, an excruciatingly familiar yet so remorsefully distant, handsome bastard. He always did as he promised, was always first to achieve something, was it a goal, a girl, or Kihyun’s every bit of trust. He couldn’t resist the power Hyungwon had, his charming smiling pictures on social media pages and friendly, neat messages that were so different to the stupid short texts they used to send each other every day when they got their first phones. Hyungwon had enough charm to make Kihyun think carefully of his outfit, make him want to impress someone he sure as hell didn’t have any feelings for. But Hyungwon was always so easy to… love, in a way. And Kihyun raced down the memory lane and regretted every single stupid thing he had ever done or blushed slightly when he remembered all the little unambiguously affectionate gestures he showed, and it made him feel light in a good, renewed way.

Kihyun didn’t think he could revive the old feelings, but he could always fall as if it was the very first time, because Hyungwon that invited him to dinner at his place was not the same soft-spoken boy that didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes Kihyun thought he himself hadn’t changed at all if he still allowed himself to be driven by something other than his own ambitions.

Hyungwon lived in Upper West Side in an industrial-styled studio apartment, and Kihyun fell in love with the atmosphere since his first step inside. Red brick walls and warm yellow lights, clear windows that looked out into the night city, all empty space and barely any doors. There was food on the kitchen counter and a bottle of wine, black couches and a coffee table were facing the TV and the view outside, and a wide wooden table harbored the same organised mess Hyungwon always had on his desk back home—half papers and a laptop, half plates and cutlery.

The other man was still wearing his suit pants and a shirt and held a glass of wine. He came home from work not long before Kihyun arrived, and even though he looked a little tired, he still kept the same gentle smile he always had on his lips.

“I can’t cook that well, so I ordered takeout,” Hyungwon laughed and curled his eyebrows in a cute apologetic way, as if Kihyun could judge him for being considerate to both of their stomachs, “I hope you like Korean food?” He raised a plate with bulgogi, and Kihyun laughed. It was easy to throw away all the burdens and grudges he carried on his shoulders when Hyungwon was just himself, as much as Kihyun could call it him. He wasn’t the boy that didn’t intentionally break his heart back when they were younger together, it was a familiar stranger he tried so hard not to chase the past six years. And Kihyun could sneakily call this dinner a date if he hadn’t realised that he knew nothing of the man that invited him.

“I really like your apartment.” Kihyun took a sip of the wine and looked around the pictures above the windows. Those were photographs of famous historic events and photographs he had never seen before, maybe originals, maybe Hyungwon’s own. There was even a shot of the Golden Gates in the fog. Kihyun thought of home.

“Thank you.” Hyungwon replied with a smile and carried plates with food to the table. Kihyun gasped and silently cursed at himself for forgetting the manners his mother always drilled into his head.

“Do you need help? Let me help.” He put his wine glass down and hurried to the kitchen counter to pick up the rest of the dishes, and Hyungwon rushed to say that it was okay, that Kihyun was a guest and he shouldn’t bother with unnecessary preparations, but he insisted and walked between the counter and the table with a proudly raised head. It gave him comfort, helping Hyungwon. He always did it as a kid: carried his bike when the other was too tired, or helped Hyungwon’s mom with cooking, or served as a goalie for his friend to practice before a soccer game.

Kihyun didn’t expect the dinner to be as nice as it was. The atmosphere was something he never quite experienced before, like they were old friends that decided to casually meet up to catch up on a few months they hadn’t seen each other, and like strangers that went on a date for the first time. It was like the fate gave them both a chance to get to know the person he treasured the most, the only person that made his childhood brighter than how it would have been without him. Hyungwon was always a little bit more than just a best friend, he was family, home, all of Kihyun’s affection.

And they talked a lot. Time seemed to fly by with how much they had to share, and Hyungwon couldn’t stop talking and Kihyun couldn’t stop smiling and drinking his wine, happy that although he himself was lost and wandering, the other continued swimming in his own direction. Hyungwon settled down in New York, finished his political science degree in Columbia University, found a job to earn money for grad school. He was waiting for a reply from Harvard. Kihyun somehow had no doubt that he would get it.

“And you’re just as obsessed with changing the world as you were as a kid?” Kihyun asked in between shoving a portion of beef and rice into his mouth just as Hyungwon laughed with his cheeks full.

“The concept of changing the world became a little bit abstract over time, but in short terms, yes, I’m still aiming to get into politics.” And he was still just as ambitious, was still a dreamer, except now he wasn’t just floating in the stream. He built a boat and found his hands on the wheel.

Kihyun found it in himself to talk about himself, to share how loneliness helped his passions evolve, how he didn’t think much before applying to a music college and how much he received as a result, how his talent felt… real. And recognised. And Hyungwon sat opposite him and listened, and he had that look, the look of something similar to regret, or guilt, or melancholy, because they both knew that it was his complete disappearance that made Kihyun change. Although it was unsaid, it levitated in the air—Kihyun’s damage of losing his best friend, his crooked heart, his feeling of betrayal. Hyungwon sensed it, knew it on the level beyond conscious, like when he left, a piece of Kihyun’s shattered heart left with him.

They moved to sit on the couch, bottle of wine nearly finished, and minds relaxed after a couple of glasses. Kihyun felt like he was a teenager again, constantly conflicted, in the eternal state of ‘maybe’s and ‘what if’s, overthinking yet tipsy enough to not carry about the things around him. Just like back in Los Angeles, when they both were just a couple of boys with no alcohol tolerance, hormones and thin pubescent fluff instead of a beard. Hyungwon had sex with a girl, and Kihyun still tried to figure out where in the world he belonged. Deeply inside he knew it had always been his best friend, for he was the only person he remembered throughout his entire childhood. Back then things were so much easier, although they seemed like the world had come to an end.

Hyungwon blabbered and blabbered, and when he mentioned that his sexuality leaned towards males, Kihyun sipped more of his wine and leaned on his shoulder, oblivious to discomfort caused by the thin bone under his head and Hyungwon’s little gentle smile he always had when Kihyun did something endearing. And he talked more, talked about his semesters in Moscow and Shanghai a few years ago, about his work on the news channel and campaigns he organized during the 2008 election. He described the most interesting places he’d been in to New York and suggested to show Kihyun around the city once he had some free time. He suddenly recalled some petty drama he was part of back in the first year of university, fights and arguments he had with his flatmates he lived with before renting a place of his own, and a random one-night stand that had no relevancy to whatever he was talking about before. Kihyun listened, eyes vaguely focused on the photograph of the San Francisco Bay; listened and thought that Hyungwon still felt like home, remembered why he loved his stories, smiled at the memory of their debate practices because Hyungwon wouldn’t stop feeling nervous. He was always quiet in group discussion, but when it was just the two of them, Hyungwon rambled and rambled, like Kihyun was the only person that could hear and understand him. In many ways, it was true.

“After you left,” Kihyun was getting sleepy from the wine and with Hyungwon’s soft voice on the background, he had long lost all his wits and thoughts. He just wanted to know if he was the one to blame for his own suffering. “Why didn’t you visit a single time?” Every Thanksgiving, Kihyun listened to his parents’ prayers and wished for his best friend to take him away. He frequently looked at the entrance door, hoping that the other boy would barge in at any minute, grab him by the hand and escape with him as far from California as was physically possible. Even if they spent days and nights driving across the entire country with no sleep or food.

Hyungwon stayed silent for a couple of second. “I wanted to visit you.” Kihyun didn’t dare interrupt, he knew the other was picking his words, and so he waited patiently, somehow already expecting what was to come. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to see me. There were things you said to me before I left,” he breathed in, and Kihyun exhaled, familiar ache twisting and squeezing his heart. There were a lot of things Kihyun regretted in his life. He didn’t regret leaving his mother alone. He regretted hitting Hyungwon until he cried when they fooled around on the beach when they were ten, he regretted shouting at Hyungwon after the prom night, he regretted never hugging Hyungwon before he left, he regretted deleting MySpace because back then it was the only social media they both had. Kihyun wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry, because he had always been afraid of changes, and having Hyungwon next to him felt like finding home he thought he lost six years ago. “I… actually tried to reach you a number of times. You never replied to your messages, and your phone was off, and you were never home when I called on the landline.” Hyungwon sighed, “Sorry, I don’t want to accuse you. It was my fault.”

“I regretted every single word I said that day.” Kihyun said quietly and closed his eyes, leaning more onto Hyungwon’s shoulder and chest. In reality, he didn’t know what he aimed to achieve with this conversation, with this intimacy, and even though a tiny voice in his head spelled everything out for him, he wasn’t brave enough to believe it. “My phone broke,” Kihyun huffed out a laugh at the memory of him throwing his old mobile against the floor in a fit of rage, “and then I deleted all my social media until I went to college. I wasn’t home that much. I worked basically all day so I could have enough to pay for the music school, and by the time I came home, you must have already fallen asleep. The difference is three hours, isn’t it?”

Hyungwon hummed to confirm. “Working late isn’t healthy.”

“You come back home late yourself.”

The other laughed at this. “Well, the channel does run twenty-four-seven, so we must always have our ears ready for any sensations.”

“Good thing mother never watched TV.” Hyungwon laughed at this again, and Kihyun felt the ache in his chest slowly dispersing and warm tranquillity settling there instead. There was motion over his head, as if Hyungwon was playing with his hair or contemplating whether to put his cheek on top of his head.

It was quiet for another while. “You said you regretted everything you said. Did you mean it?”

The thing Kihyun hated the most in building relationships was the ambiguity and all the unspoken words he preferred to keep to himself. He lacked some straightforward force, because his whole life he was always the one dragging words out of other people. He was tired of men that always expected him to come over first, tired of vague break-ups and unlabelled attraction. And somehow, everything was always forgivable when it came to his best friend. Maybe, just maybe, falling in love with Hyungwon that night wasn’t a continuation of everything he’d been through, but a completely new feeling. When the old flowers withered away, he planted a new seed and allowed something entirely different to grow there instead.

Kihyun leaned his head back so he could look Hyungwon in the eyes and shook his head so lightly it was barely traceable. But Hyungwon’s eyes were always big, glassy and emotional like those of a loyal guard dog, and he could always see everything. He felt a light tickling caress on his waist—it was the other man’s arms Kihyun was lying on, and it somehow didn’t occur to him that he wanted to kiss his once childhood best friend. Being so close to Hyungwon’s face, he realized he never actually gave meaning to his face features, never judged them. He was an awkward child with puffy cheeks and big lips, and his parents always cut his hair in a funny way. Kihyun knew he wasn’t any better, and he thanked puberty for getting rid of his chubby stomach and his round face, and looking back at everything he grew up from, he couldn’t believe he never noticed what Hyungwon really looked like underneath his gentle smiles and long bangs. It must have evaporated from his memory.

A little flutter rose in his chest when he looked, really looked, swam on the surface and floated, just how his best friend always did. Hyungwon’s lips weren’t awkward, and although he had a small face that even Kihyun’s palms could cup, they didn’t seem out of place, no, they were just right, just how they always were. Kihyun never saw the plump curve of his top lip and the little cracks on his bottom, how often the other licked over them, how much he smiled in his usual polite way and made them disappear. And Kihyun didn’t want them to disappear, he wanted to kiss them and breathe in everything he couldn’t have, see if kissing the other man was just as good as it looked back in high school, when he observed everything from the side, like a stupid teenager he had always been.

And screw his singer lungs for giving up on him in the moment of pressure, screw his inability to seem indifferent and for breathing faster than normal, screw his chest for rising every half a second, and screw the shaky exhale he released when the caress on his waist turned into a proper touch, when Hyungwon’s palm lightly pressed to his side and his fingertips hid in the folds of his dress shirt. Hyungwon wasn’t in favor of long eye contacts, never had been, and when his eyes moved down to his lips, Kihyun knew it wasn’t meant to be unnoticed. So he reached up, towards Hyungwon’s beautiful face.

And he closed his eyes as soon as the other’s lips pressed to his, so warm and soft and with a mist of wine over them, and Kihyun breathed out shakily through his nose because he destroyed the home he had been building for twenty years with one simple, desired touch. Hyungwon pressed his mouth closer, and Kihyun kissed his upper lip, feeling the strong yet soft curve he never found this fascinating, feeling how plump it was, how it still tasted like wine. Then the fingers on his waist curled and crumpled his shirt, and Hyungwon kissed back, covering Kihyun’s mouth fully and breathing in louder, pushing them so close together their noses bumped into each other’s. And Kihyun had always been like this, turning his mind off to stop thinking and feel more, acting on instincts, blindly.

Kihyun focused on the rhythm, coordinated with how Hyungwon’s mouth opened and closed around his lips, kissing still so softly but already so deeply. And when a warm wet tip of a tongue caressed his bottom lip, Kihyun gasped silently at the rough, electrifying sensation rushing down from his chest to his stomach and lower, and he knew he couldn’t stop even if the world came crumbling down on them. So he shifted around, body now fully turned towards Hyungwon, and kissed quicker, refusing to separate for even a second.

“Shit, the wine,” Hyungwon hushed into his mouth and kissed back immediately, hand holding his waist tightening and bringing Kihyun with him as leaned to the side and blindly tried to put the wine glass onto the coffee table. Kihyun did the same although not in a thousand lights years would he care about spilling the drink onto his white shirt, or Hyungwon’s couch, or Hyungwon’s floor, or Hyungwon, because he knew the other wouldn’t care either. Kihyun felt it, the same need and fervency in Hyungwon’s breathing, cramping fingers, wet searching lips and braving tongue. He sat on his knees, rising up and above Hyungwon, kissing him with the passion of newfound desire, with all the aged anger that dissipated with every inhale, with the feelings that died and now blossomed anew. He kissed Hyungwon like the last twenty fateful years didn’t exist.

Kihyun pressed his body closer, hands rubbing along Hyungwon’s neck and jawline, fingers burying in the soft hair at the back and then sliding down the nape to the collar of his shirt. He was restless. The other man started leaning backwards under Kihyun weight and laid on the couch, tugging Kihyun on top of him, and there were hands on his waist, his shoulders, his forearms, his hips, his neck, running along his body like the other man didn’t know what he wanted to hold on to. Kihyun knew what he himself wanted; he wanted this moment to last forever, he wanted to erase the last eight years of his life and confess to his stupid awkward best friend he loved with his entire heart, he wanted to live up to the sweet eternity he missed out on by hiding away in his misery, writing his feelings in music instead of Hyungwon’s skin.

Then Hyungwon’s fingers settled in his hair and he pulled at his locks, breathing in louder and deeper, opening his mouth wider and moving his tongue as he pleased, playing with Kihyun’s and not allowing him to shift away for even a second. Kihyun sucked on his bottom lip, ecstatic at the newfound knowledge of its plushiness and tenderness, bit it, licked over it and joined Hyungwon’s desperate tongue, kissing him wholly and with all the concealed affection he once treasured as a kid.

Hands in his hair disappeared and moved to his jaw, pushing Kihyun away from the other man’s face, and he opened his eyes to see a harshly breathing Hyungwon looking at him with wide eyes.

“Shit, I forgot,” he glanced at his lips for a quick moment and looked into his eyes again, forming words and coming back to his senses, seemingly unsuccessfully. Kihyun frowned, and something hardened in his heart. Something like a fear of rejection, something like ‘it was a mistake’, something like another six years of silent wandering. “I forgot to show you something.” Hyungwon finally breathed out, and Kihyun felt a little caress on his cheek. He wanted to shout and fight, pull Hyungwon’s hair like he always did as a kid and tumble him on the ground. Except the other was already down and looked out of it, eyes running between his lips and eyes. A soft blush was covering his cheeks.

“And now is the right time?” Was all Kihyun could quietly mutter instead.

“I have to, otherwise I forget and never muster the courage for it again.” Hyungwon breathed out and sat up, and Kihyun couldn’t do much other than climbing off his hips and finding himself alone on the couch as the other man ran off to the table and shuffled through his endless notes and papers. And when Kihyun saw him from the side, felt the cold slowly returning to his body, he couldn’t help the little stones gathering at the bottom of his heart, filling the chambers and blocking the blood from flowing, because he just kissed the man he once called his best friend. He was never the one to think about the future or worry about consequences, but as he felt his lips drying and buzzing, he felt terror of what was to come spreading in his chest.

Hyungwon grabbed a piece of paper and stood in front of the TV, opposite the couch. “Uhm, there is a poem I want to read out,” he quietly mumbled and ran a hand through his hair, and the cold metal left Kihyun’s body immediately. Hyungwon was a beautiful stranger, but he was so, so familiar. He was always like this, coming up with random ideas and doing anything in his power to act on them, be it a game or a life and death decision. “I’ve been writing it for quite a while, it’s actually very long, it’s about ten pages long, but I, you know, don’t want to bore you, so I only gathered the parts I like,” Hyungwon blabbered shyly, eyes focused on the paper in his slightly shaky hands and teeth settled on his bottom lip. Kihyun smiled as he saw the same skinny boy he was once best friends with back in San Francisco, the boy that was so ambitious and bright but so scared to perform in front of the class. “Well, I guess I’ll start?” Hyungwon curved his eyebrows and glanced up for a second just to quickly look back down, scratching the back of his head.

He took a deep breath and shuffled on one place, hands obviously getting clammy with how the paper started soaking up in places Hyungwon had been holding it. In that moment, all worries lifted off Kihyun’s shoulders, and the only thing he had in mind was the strong wish to calm the other man and hold him tightly in his arms, like he always did as a kid.

“Yeah, anyways. Poem, Unnamed.” Hyungwon cleared his throat and started.  
“My lover sat down by the seaside,  
With ghosts and birds of the morning.  
My lover sat down through the night,  
Singing and endlessly mourning,  
Dreaming of becoming a sea tide,  
Storming.

“My lover's a hopeless romantic,  
A poet with words of the wind.  
My lover's my leader, my light,  
Although he himself is chagrined.  
In melancholy he's dramatic,  
Down-pinned.

“My lover's a child of music,  
An angel that shines in the dark.  
My lover's a reckless knight,  
Carving words on me like a mark  
And erasing the blood with red silk,  
Walls stark.

“Sometimes I drown in my own mind,  
I lose my eyesight, become blind.  
I hindered feelings, all my life,  
I cut my heart veins with a knife.  
My solitude was my best friend.  
I built a castle to defend  
My emotional devotion,  
My bitter tears, teary ocean,  
My stumbling breathing and attacks  
Of panic seeping through the cracks.  
I spoke to waves as if on stage,  
But was a bird within a cage.

“And even though the sun was bright,  
My lover smiled for the moon.  
He hid his heart wrapped up in white,  
And foam caressed his summer tune.

“My lover's a bird, a flown swallow,  
Chirping soft songs in sugary breeze.  
My lover's hand I'll always follow,  
In my lover's eyes I'll always freeze.

“And if the melody stops, then I'll take out my pipe  
And play bygone blues for my lover tonight.”

Hyungwon didn’t look up straight away, keeping his eyes on the paper he fiddled with at the corners. Silence settled between them as the other man slowly lifted his gaze, eyes big and wet like those of a loyal dog left at home alone.

“Uh, it’s supposed to be longer, obviously the transitions are smoother in the original version, but I know it’s boring, so I cut it short, I think I already told you that,” Hyungwon rambled and curved his eyebrows again, waiting for Kihyun to reply. And Kihyun… Kihyun was just maybe a little bit relieved that his feelings had always been reciprocated. He was just a tiny bit overwhelmed and a very tiny bit happy about being called a lover.

“So, uh, what do you think?” Hyungwon quietly asked and approached the couch, still tentative and slightly unsure like he had always been when he was a kid.

Kihyun looked up and smiled, realizing how gentle all his smiles were when they were directed at the man in front of him. “How are you expecting people to vote for you when you can’t even present your own confession?”

Hyungwon stood still and blinked at him for a few seconds, processing the question. Kihyun had never been weak, never allowed people to play with his feelings, didn’t stand stupidity—didn’t stand a lot of things, actually, but something about Hyungwon’s eyes, his tight lips and curved eyebrows always made him want to accept everything as it was. Accept the reality and let go of the past in which they were both stupid, west-raised boys that committed mistakes they couldn’t quite let go of.

Reading the silent begging for an answer in Hyungwon’s eyes, Kihyun took his hand and conveyed all the warmth he buried deeply somewhere within himself in a smile. “I like it.”

Hyungwon held his hand in return, thumb gently caressing the back of his palm. “Will you forgive me?” He asked, voice now stronger but still unsure, still shy. “Will you forgive me for everything I’ve pulled you through? For leaving and never reaching back to you, for fooling around, for being a coward? Will you,” Hyungwon looked down at his feet, taking his time to utter the last question, “will you share the pain I caused, with me?”

Kihyun took his other hand in and smiled, in the gentlest way only Hyungwon could understand.

Although nights were getting longer with each passing day of gloomy November, this night was not enough to write the past in tunes and spread it in the wind. So Hyungwon poured more wine, and they huddled on the couch again, Kihyun’s head on the other’s shoulder, eyes pointed in the direction of but not quite looking at the photograph of the San Francisco Bay.

“You feel like home.” Hyungwon said, and though Kihyun couldn’t see, he knew the other was dreamily staring somewhere far away. “Not my home in San Fran but more like my childhood, and memories I made, and the person I've become. You're in all of my memories, did you know that? Sometimes I feel like you are everything I've ever known.” Liquid warmth spread in Kihyun’s chest hearing that he wasn't the only one that felt that way. Hyungwon had always been his home too.

But they both knew the last six years couldn’t be erased in one bittersweet November night.

 

Forgiving Hyungwon was easier with every evening they spent together, chatting away about the past years, walking around New York and waiting for the moment everything was put in place. Hiding the past under the ten locks and burying it underground was easier with every kiss they shared, with every morning coffee they sleepily drank for breakfast, with every nostalgic memory that caused smiles on their faces. Loving Hyungwon was easier with every new thing Kihyun discovered about him, throwing away the mask of a stranger and seeing someone he cherished long before they met again.

Kihyun allowed himself to finally feel at ease. They celebrated his twenty fifth birthday in a company of Hyungwon’s friends, and it was where he wanted to be the most that day—at home, with the only person that knew him like no one else did, with someone who had been there for the majority of his previous birthdays, with the friend and lover that lived through his history and accepted him in the present.

Having Hyungwon by his side had always been easier.

Even when he received his acceptance letter into the law school in Harvard and had to move Massachusetts. Kihyun screwed New York and auditioned for the music school in Boston, got in and started packing his things to move in with Hyungwon. At first in his studio apartment in Upper West Side, so he didn’t have to pay for rent of his little flat in Queens anymore. Then at it was a nice cozy apartment somewhere on the edge of Boston so Hyungwon could drive to his university and Kihyun could come back to his biking habit he lost over the past few months. After two years it was a pretty house back in Manhattan, because Hyungwon loved New York and Kihyun loved the incredible amount of music scenes he could find himself to be a part of.

Kihyun needed Hyungwon to be by his side even when he locked himself in their bedroom and composed and composed and composed, refusing to leave, too maniac about his next work. He needed Hyungwon when they had to stay low about their relationship because his lover’s career could be affected, because he was still just as ambitious and aiming high and achieving the goals he established for himself. Kihyun needed Hyungwon when his mother passed away, when a little piece of his heart that still considered California to be his home slowly burned down, demolishing the last bridge to the San Francisco Bay, to the house he grew up in, to the pain he inflicted upon himself. And even when he tried to erase every little aching memory, Hyungwon was always there, by his side and in his head, still smiling just as tenderly as he did back when he was a little kid.

Kihyun learned how much Hyungwon needed him by his side too in ways he didn’t expect. Even in their fights, even in their sex, even for their payment bills, Hyungwon always needed him. And it was always easy to stay together like they always did when they were kids. When they went to the polling station together, when Hyungwon accidentally reminded him of his parents and their control over Kihyun’s world views, when they picked another fight and then cuddled later the same night. Even when during the election day Hyungwon screamed and groaned with so much anger Kihyun felt terror rising in his throat as he memory of his scary father. Even when the same night Hyungwon exhausted himself to the point he coughed for hours on end, when he wheezed in pain and nearly fainted, when he cried about the future of their country like a madman and then curled up on the bed to survive the beating ache in his chest. Even when a few days later Hyungwon came back home after seeing a doctor and handed Kihyun a signed paper with expression that didn’t resemble anything he had ever seen before.

Even then, Kihyun needed Hyungwon by his side.

“So,” he broke the still silence that settled in the house and never looked up from the document, eyes still pointing at it but staring right through it, ignoring every single letter. “Guess you won’t have to put yourself forward as a candidate anymore.”

Even then, Hyungwon needed Kihyun by his side.

 

**

 

When Kihyun said he wanted to spend his thirtieth Christmas in a special place, Hyungwon agreed without a second thought. Packing everything for the little unplanned trip, they left New York early in the morning, aiming to get to their destination in time for the celebration. To days later, driving down the freeway, Hyungwon takes an expected turn and rules into the Route-1, and Kihyun smiles at the familiar scenery, at the brown hills and dark black ocean. And although the sky is gray and the wind is blowing, he rolls down the window and lets the breeze ruffle his hair. He squints his eyes and puts his arm out of the window, hand arching in a wave-like movement, and he imagines gliding over the water he never fully learned to love.

Hyungwon smiles too, endeared by Kihyun’s antics and sweet smiles he usually reserves for home. He seems a little paler than usual, and the gray glooming of the clouds reflects off his skin and slides along the sulky cheeks and slightly swollen bags under his eyes. He slums his posture, feeling a little more tired than usual. Despite everything, he keeps on driving.

Kihyun plays songs from his classic rock playlist, nostalgic and stubborn about the mood that must be kept during a road trip. Hyungwon doesn’t mind—he always lets the other have his way with music, it has always been this way. When they pass by the village they grew up in, Kihyun sighs with a light smile remaining on his face at the bright decorations and garlands hanging off every house, people going around and about, dressed lightly for this winter. His parents’ house wasn’t pretty or bright or particularly festive, and he always preferred to stay over at Hyungwon’s to play games and receive some free treats from his mom.

Arriving at the familiar cliff, Hyungwon turns to the side, and the car grunts on the messy rocky road, crawling to the improvised parking lot they marked for themselves twenty-something years ago. Kihyun jumps out of the car, runs around the front and opens the door for Hyungwon, just because he can and because he wants to, just because it’s nice and makes Hyungwon smile. He takes the other’s thin hand in his, squeezing it gently, and steps on the worn-out grass and sharp rocks leading their path to the lighthouse. To the place they once called their own.

It's surprising it’s still standing. Kihyun slides his free palm along the shabby wall that used to be white and new, and smudges of dirt appear on his skin. Kicking the broken door, he goes inside, and Kihyun smiles brighter at the fact that the stairs are still attached, that they haven’t fallen apart completely. He waits for Hyungwon to cough out the dust that immediately gets into his throat and then offers his hand again to lead the other up the stairs. The railings are filthy, probably full of splinters, but Kihyun still slides his hand up and makes a retching sound at a layer of dust covering his palm. He hops up the stairs and looks up, following the weak source of light seeping through the crack in the second door, but Hyungwon is a little weak and shuffles behind him, so Kihyun runs down and hugs his shoulders, now reaching upstairs with matching pace.

Kihyun kicks the second door too, and it falls back with a thud, and he takes a big step into the tower, the place they called their secret base, their pirate ship, their dragon lair, their war bunker, their party house. Hyungwon covers his mouth with a collar of his shirt and coughs again. The air is old and stale, dust and a long history of words and stories floating in the empty space. The bulb of the light machine is long broken, and the glass is covered in soot. The shattered windows are now homes to countless spider webs, and the old mattress is ripped, full of holes and what seems to be moss. Good thing Kihyun brought a lot of blankets.

He lays the old duvet they were going to throw away anyways on the dirty wooden floor, and Hyungwon plops on it with a funny grunt, like those of an old man. Kihyun gets out a comforter and throws it on the other man’s shoulders, and Hyungwon tugs at the hems to cover himself a little bit more. Kihyun runs down to the car to get another bag with drinks and food, while Hyungwon stays upstairs and watches the clouds shift closer together, forming a tight-tight layer of transcendent fluff, preventing the sun rays from shining directly at the always sunny California but letting the light seep through and drown the city in a mystical gray glow.

Kihyun opens a bottle of champagne, gets out a box of gingerbread cookies he baked before their little road trip, and Hyungwon takes one quietly, taking a small bite and chewing slowly, too buried in his mind to focus on the process. Kihyun plops next to him, takes one cookie and finishes it in a few bites, suddenly hungry from running back and forth. He puts his head on Hyungwon’s shoulder and relaxes. For the first time in many years, he’s happy to be back home, and home has always been where Hyungwon is.

This is the ocean Kihyun dedicated numerous compositions to, this is the deep dark water he was drowned in for years until he decided it was time to move on. There was a time when he wanted to be a marine. There was a time when he wanted to explore the endless horizon and come back home a hero, and it had been his most ambitious dream. The only dream he ever had, truthfully. It’s quiet; no seagulls, no people, no fireworks in the middle of the day. Just pleasant tranquillity, bittersweet nostalgy and the man he still loves the most in the world.

Hyungwon has always spoken to the ocean like it was his friend. When he was a kid, he believed in sirens and pirates and deepwater dinosaurs, and he wrote rhymes for all the mystical creatures to come to him and listen. With every tide that broke against the rocks, a dream was born in his head, a dream that he was determined to follow. It’s always so peaceful in here. In the calamity of Hyungwon’s world, this little part of the vast endless ocean is the most calm he has ever found, because Kihyun has always been by his side. When he loses his way at sea, Kihyun can always command his boat back to him again.

Suddenly, the weight lifts off his shoulder, and Hyungwon blinks, focusing his eyes on the distance.

“Is this,” Kihyun stands up and approaches the crooked glass wall, and the more he looks, the more his face fills with unexplainable happiness, “snow?”

Hyungwon straightens his back and looks up at the sky, and tiny rare snowflakes slowly descend from the thick grey clouds, dancing in the calm breeze and falling on the withering ground, and Hyungwon smiles. Kihyun laughs in disbelief, presses himself against the window, eyes shining at the magical sight he never thought he’d live to see.

This Christmas, it snows back home in California for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well... this is it. thank you so much for reading! i hope you liked it and if not hmu @chaeleggiewon and scream at me
> 
> im really sorry for the poem, its defo not my strength but i really needed to include it so!! hope it explained some things kihyun could never.
> 
> thank you khw bingo creators for giving me motivation to write owo ily


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